Archive of Our Own

Mel isn’t having a panic attack.

She isn’t.

Her breathing is barely elevated and her heart rate is approximately normal. Certainly adjacent to normal. She’s fine. Mel is trying to fix something and a panic attack would be a waste of time so she isn't doing it. She holds her phone to her ear, listening to the ring tone with a fluttering tension.

Burrrr.

Burrrr.

Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system. ‘Becca King’ is not available right now. If you’d like to leave a message-

Indistinct yelling rings through the air, coming from some neighborhood celebration nearby full of drinks and warm bodies. Cars honk on overcrowded city streets. People slip past one another on the sidewalk with laughing voices. It all just comes through as white noise while Mel waits for the answering system to beep, lingering at the edges of the ambulance bay. The sky darkens in front of her eyes, night settling in without permission as she stands frozen in place, barely able to breathe-

Beep.

And she’s back.

“Becca, it’s me. Again.” Mel says, scrubbing a hand over her face. Her voice sounds thin even to her own ears. “I, um, I really need you to call me back as soon as you get this, okay?” She watches a pair of girls wander down the sidewalk arm in arm. “Please.” 

The last part is involuntary, slipping out before Mel can catch it. 

She hangs up immediately, chest tightening. She doesn’t want to hear the robotic voice tell her what to do if she wants to change her message. Mel’s recent history is a long list of unanswered outgoing calls all to the exact same person, terminating in the exact same automated answering system. She knows.

“Mel?”

Switching gears Mel opens up her texts with Becca, staring at an equally uninterrupted wall of outgoing messages. 

Just checking in, I haven't heard from you since this morning

Did the picnic run long today?

Becca?

Becca please text me.

The list goes on and on, running uninterrupted from the early afternoon to now. And at the very bottom, Mel’s only hint of what’s happening on Becca’s side.

Read 7:58pm.

She’s not sure if that feels more like a lifeline or a condemnation. She holds onto it regardless.

“Mel, are you alright?”

Another missed call. A string of unanswered texts in her phone. No more answers than she had before. The world feels like it’s warping around her, squeezing in on her with one breath and expanding in the next. Mel tries to slow herself down, breathe in purposefully, but it comes in staccato and broken before it even reaches her chest. 

It’s fine.

She's fine.

Mel is fixing this. People who fix things don’t freak out. That would mean they’re the ones who need help and she doesn’t. There has to be another way to reach Becca, something she hasn’t thought of yet-

“Mel.”

Frank appears between blinks.

Mel jumps, staring up at him with wide eyes. Oh. When did he…?

The buzzing in her ears fades, falling back down to a more manageable level. Mel isn't sure how long she’s been lingering out here on the farthest edges of the ambulance bay, just waiting for her phone to give her a destination. She certainly hadn't expected to be noticed by anyone as she did. Mel seems to be invisible most of the time, standing in a world no one else can see.

Now Frank is back.

He's back and he's staring at her like he can see her just as easily as he did that first day together. Mel isn't sure what to do under such direct observation. 

Frank takes another step closer, watching her carefully. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s-” Mel swallows around the knot in her throat, shaking her head as she tries to find the right words. “It’s, it’s my sister-”

“Becca.” Frank completes.

“Yeah, it…yeah.” Mel stumbles, her train of thought broken. She’s not sure the last time she said Becca’s name around Frank. It has to have been a few hours at the very least although Mel can’t quite remember when it would have been. A moment, an introduction and question from their first day together, flashes through her mind, but Mel shoves it down. Surely she said something today, at some point. Otherwise- 

Otherwise he remembered her sister's name for the last ten months.

That’s too much to accept.

Still something settles inside of her at his participation. Only Frank seems to listen to her without keeping one foot planted in another task. It’s enough to have Mel sucking in a breath and trying to get the rest of her story out.

“Becca and I, we were supposed to watch the fireworks together after my shift today. I called her to tell her I’m on my way and she didn’t pick up.” Mel’s voice wobbles, cracking on something plaintive and honest. “I-I called her center to see if they could pass the message on, I just wanted to know-” 

“Mel.” Something about how Frank says her name, stern and grounding and halfway to the voice he uses with patients, forces her to take a breath. “I know. You just wanted to make sure she’s okay.”

Yes. 

Mel blinks hard against the wave of prickling heat burning behind her eyes. 

She just wants to know that her sister is okay. 

“The center said she checked out with another patient, she just…left.” Mel’s voice falls short on the last word like she can’t stand to hear it out loud. “Either she- she got confused or she didn’t want to wait anymore, but she left the center and now she won’t answer her phone and she’s somewhere in the city, and- and I don’t know where.”

Becca is her responsibility. She’s been Mel’s responsibility. 

Since long before Mom looked at Mel from her hospital bed with tired baggy eyes and told her it’s her job to look out for Becca. Like Mel hadn’t already been doing that with every toy given over without a fuss and snack swapped so Becca could get exactly what she wanted. And now it’s Mel’s fault that she’s missing. 

She decided to be selfish. She decided to go into medicine. 

No, not just medicine.

Emergency medicine. 

Notorious for long hours and rarely accurate shift lengths. Full of cases and people that let her feel like she’s actually making a difference. Mel decided to be selfish and now Becca is missing.

“Hey, hey.” Frank says, ducking his head to meet her eyes steadily. It’s only looking at him that Mel can feel how jittery she really is. “It’s gonna be alright.” She isn’t sure how that can be true even as she holds her breath, hanging on his every word. “We’ll find her, okay?”

“We?” Mel echoes, a question burning in her throat. 

It’s been a long day, one of those shifts that just seemed to drag with every hour. She’s tired. Hearing what she wants to hear. He can’t be offering what she thinks he’s offering-

“Of course.” Frank agrees immediately, hiking his backpack a little higher. “I’m here Mel, let me help.”

Oh.

She didn’t-

Those aren't words Mel expected to hear. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have expected them from Frank. He’s got a new lease in the ER. He has a family waiting for him at home according to the golden ring sitting on his finger. Things look good for him. There’s nothing compelling him to stay and help her for so little reward as the fact that Mel has no idea how to do this on her own. 

It's a heavy offer. One that no one else has ever given her.

Frank has been gone for ten months and he’s still the only person who doesn't struggle to see her.

Mel lunges forward, pulling Frank into the aborted hug she didn’t give him earlier. She holds him tightly as fresh air seems to hit her lungs for the first time since that initial missed call. Frank feels like someone who solves problems in the ER, always Mel’s first instinct to turn to even during his absence. Him coming back and immediately volunteering to help her, personally, is almost too much to bear.

Frank goes rigid under her touch for a moment before his arms come up to close around her achingly slowly. As soon as they meet on the other side of Mel’s torso, they constrict, tightening like he’ll never let go. 

Mel isn’t sure she can remember the last time someone held her like this. Tight and firm, pulling her into them with more pressure than is polite. It feels like coming in from the cold.

The world creeps back in around them eventually, distant honking filling the air as they find the ability to separate again. Mel feels like she’s trying to tuck herself back into her own skin, body buzzing with an unexpected energy. 

Frank gives her a cloudy expression, eyes full of something she can’t describe. He gestures towards the parking garage with a small nod. “Shall we?”

Mel hikes her bag a little higher on her shoulder and gives him a nod, grateful he doesn’t draw attention to her failure to keep her hands to herself. 

Reality rolls back in as they walk to the parking garage, nerves burrowing themselves deep in her chest. There’s an echoing murmur of people above them as people slowly trickle up to the hospital rooftop for a better view of the coming fireworks.

Mel and Frank pass unnoticed beneath them as they slip into the garage, weaving through the parked cars until they finally reach Frank’s. It’s old and scratched and dinged with little marks, dozens of signs of life. It’s ironically the complete opposite of the interior as Mel slips inside. Despite the stains on the carpeted floor mats, the interior could be most accurately described as a moonscape. No car seats or Cheetos ground into the carpets. No clutter in the cup holders. No sign of any other presence in the seemingly undisturbed backseat. The only other thing in the car is Frank’s backpack, wedged into the back without comment.

There’s a story there, something lingering in the edges of such a strange arrangement, but Mel doesn’t press.

It’s not her place.

And even if it were, she’s not sure how to even go about opening the topic to begin with. Not to something as nebulous and ill-defined as this.

Frank settles into his seat with a wince as his almost comically full ring of keys jangles. He runs through starting up the car and fidgeting with the climate controls as he glances at Mel. “Any thoughts on where you want to start? Maybe the family she left with?”

“The center wouldn’t give me their information.” Mel says, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice as her fingers drum on the back of her phone. “I’m not even sure Becca is with them, she’s never mentioned an Adam before and I know all of her friends.”

It leaves a massive hole in their plan.

Where would Becca go on her own in the city? Where does she even know?

“Maybe we try the route from the center to your apartment? To see if she just started walking?” Frank offers, one hand resting on the gear shift.

“That’s a good idea.” Mel agrees as she forces herself to breathe through her worry. Becca might have just gone home, gone somewhere familiar. Mel types their address into maps, watching most of the route light up red with traffic in every possible direction. The benefits of a holiday in the city. Everyone smart already fled two days ago to vacation somewhere less crowded. Mel grimaces as she cradles her phone in her hands carefully. “Left outside of the garage.”

Frank backs out of his parking spot with a hand pressed into the back of her seat, head twisted with a tight expression.

Mel’s chest squeezes at the sight.

She’s not sure what to make of that feeling. Or how it seems to well up in Frank's proximity. She resolves to ignore it, Mel has bigger things to deal with right now.

First Becca, then everything else.

One priority at a time.

- - -

She’s not at home.

Or anywhere along the route home from the center.

They rolled down the windows at some point as they drove down the overcrowded city streets. Every passerby, every dark alley, every possible hiding spot or notable feature that Mel and Becca have talked about on one of their walks home is checked as they roll past. Nothing. 

It’s been an hour.

An hour of searching while the worst thing Mel has ever tormented herself with comes to life right before her eyes. 

The traffic only seems to be getting worse as it slips into night properly and fireworks begin popping off in random shows nearby. There’s no chance any of them are legal. It’s the Fourth of July though, nothing feels quite real. All the rules have slipped sideways and in their place is fun and reckless abandon and summer heat.

Should be at least.

Their car feels like a lone pillar of silence in a world turned up too high.

The warm night air drifts in through the open windows as they roll past the park Mel had initially intended to watch the show from. No sign of Becca there either. Mel lets her eyes fall closed for a moment as the red taillights of the cars around them glow against her eyelids. Exhaustion has been dragging at her limbs since she woke up this morning. This feels like a cruel joke, the universe throwing something else on her plate right as she was already fighting the urge to burst.

Frank clears his throat quietly. Mel comes back to herself, cracking her eyes again to find him gesturing at the glove box with an awkward expression. “Can I?”

She slides her knees out of the way and Frank reaches over, popping it open to pull out a pack of cigarettes. They seem more worn than they have any right to be, edges of the carton soft from fidgeting. 

“Would you mind? I’m-” Frank asks, waving his hand in the air like he’s trying to encapsulate everything. It feels almost ridiculous. This day has been eight weeks long, who is she to judge how Frank deals with it?

Mel snorts, shaking her head and turning back out the window. “Go for it.”

The glove box falls open in her lap without warning, jolting Mel’s attention back inside.

“Shit, sorry. Old car. The latch is completely jacked at this point.” Frank tells her with a commiserating smile, shoving it closed again with a sharp motion. This time it finally seems to catch. He settles back into his seat, seemingly oblivious to Mel’s lingering attention as he lights his cigarette with a busted old zippo lighter before dropping it back into the mess of the center console. Frank’s arm pops up onto the window sill in a practiced motion as he takes a puff, trying to blow it out of the window.

It’s not quite successful, but Mel can’t find it in her to hate the smell as it mixes with the low heat of summer. It just seems to add to the strange impossibility of the night. The seal of silence that had settled over the car feels broken now at the hint of normalcy and she finds herself opening her mouth to ask one of the small questions rattling around her head.

“Does it help?” Mel asks, gesturing at the cigarette. They hadn’t talked about what he was taking earlier when he apologized to her, Mel isn’t sure if it’s private. The last ten months are blank hole in her mind.

“With cravings?” Frank asks, pausing for a moment to think. “Eh, sorta. It’s nice to have something to turn to. I know if I’m doing this, at least I’m not doing something worse.”

Mel nods at that. She knows what it’s like to have a lodestar. It’s meaningful, impactful. Just as much as losing it. It’s comforting to hear that he knows what it’s like in his own way. It loosens the lid on the anxieties clawing at the inside of her chest.

“Do you think we’re going to find her?” Mel whispers, voice barely escaping her throat. To ask it feels like a betrayal, but something like grief is already clawing at her throat with each minute they’re out here.

“Mel-” Frank frowns, turning to look at her as much as driving will allow him.

“I take care of Becca, I make sure she’s safe.” Mel’s chest squeezes tight, barely enough to suck in a breath. One fact echoes through her mind above all the rest. “I didn’t do it right or we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t be out here-”

“We’re going to find her.” Frank says sharply enough to cut her off. His fingers twitch around the cigarette, but his eyes are steady, unyielding. “I promised you we would, right?”

Yes.” Mel whispers, voice thin and scratchy. It’s been months since they last worked together. Since they last saw each other. There’s no reason that Mel should hold onto his words so desperately.

But she does, and she meant what she said this morning. Frank hasn’t let her down. 

Some of that seems to make it onto her face because Frank gives her a nod like he’s holding onto that promise with both hands. “Let’s try the Italian restaurant next. You said you two went there a week ago, maybe she went back.” 

It’s a weak suggestion, born out of Mel rambling everywhere she can remember them going in the past month. Anywhere notable at all.

Still it’s somewhere. Anything is better than nothing and Frank isn't giving up. He hasn't broken a promise to her yet. 

Mel nods, swallowing harshly as Frank inches them into the right turn lane.

Please, please, please-

- - -

Each minute feels like an hour.

If there wasn’t a clock on the dashboard Mel wouldn’t have any idea what time it is.

The distant rumble of fireworks and nearby sound of laughter and overly loud speakers drifts through the car like a strange miasma, coating everything in an impossible haze. The congestion is brutal, everyone trying to get around to the same places and drinking the whole time. Every block takes five minutes to clear, dragging on endlessly, and each bad guess costs them more and more time. 

Frank finishes the cigarette, dropping it out the window before lighting another.

Mel finds herself watching him as much as she does the passing world outside. She doesn’t know what she would do without Frank here tonight. Part of her hates him for seeing her like this. Another part of her thinks she would have already rattled to pieces without him. And a quiet voice in her head wishes she was working a double tonight and didn’t even know to be stressed about this. 

Mel hates that last voice for existing.

Dialing Becca’s number is almost reflexive as Mel listens to the familiar buzz in her ear.

Your call has been-

She hangs up and redials, watching Frank blow another cloud out of the window.

Your call-

Mel drops her phone back into her lap for a minute, checking the battery with a grimace. Ten percent. The smart thing to do would be to save it, keep it alive long enough for Becca to respond. She can already feel her fingers itching to redial. 

Instead Mel turns to Frank, still scanning the street as much as he can while driving.

He looks almost alien, skin dyed red in the brake lights of the cars around them all trying to make their own firework watch parties. It’s strange to see him like this. He’s occupied such a large part of her mind these long months and now in a single day he’s back. Not just back but Mel is in his car, seeing him outside of work. It doesn’t matter that they’re both still in their scrubs or that the hours in the ER are clear on both of their faces.

Frank is alive. He came back.

“I’m sorry. To steal your night like this.” Mel tells him, fingers twisting together tightly in her lap. “I, I really appreciate it.”

Frank hasn’t breathed a word about the time ticking by on his car’s dashboard, something that makes Mel desperately grateful. She’s not sure what she would do if he needed to leave now.

“Of course, Mel.” Frank says, glancing over at her with a soft expression.

“I don’t know what I would have...” Mel shakes her head, leg bouncing unconsciously in the foot well.

“Anyone would have been happy to help out.”

Mel snorts before she can stop herself, exhaustion mingling with an anxious anger.

“You don’t think so?” Frank asks with a frown.

“People have to like you for that.” She says, bitterness welling up in her chest. It’s an old hurt, one Frank couldn’t possibly have known about. Mel knows that she’s a hard pill to swallow. She’s bad at names. She says the wrong thing, or the right thing at the wrong time. Her mom called her an acquired taste. Most of the people that drift away from her have just said she’s too much.

No other descriptors needed.

“My schedule hasn’t exactly been trivia nights and karaoke invitations.” Mel says as she waves a hand loosely to encapsulate some portion of the life playing out around the car, splashed over sidewalks and screamed greetings bouncing off of buildings.

Frank frowns, looking at her with a tight expression.

Mel isn’t sure what to make of it.

“It’s fine, it’s not like I could spend that much time anyway.” She takes care of her sister. She doesn’t have time for any of that stuff. Frank is a dad, he’s got to understand what she’s talking about. The rest of life just doesn’t fit with such a big commitment - it’s usually enough to ignore the lack of invitations in the first place.

Frank looks like he’s going to argue strangely enough, Adam's apple bobbing in preparation, when Mel’s screen lights up with Becca’s picture. 

She fumbles for it, almost smacking herself in the face as she lifts it to her ear. “Becca?”

“Hi Mel.“ Becca says from the other side of the line, voice light and easy. A wave of relief hits Mel, something in her chest loosening the slightest amount. She’s okay- “Why are you calling me so much?”

What the fuck.

“What?” Mel stumbles. That’s not…what she was supposed to say. “Becca, I couldn’t reach you. The center said you were missing.”

“No I’m not. I’m with Adam.”

Like the man whose family checked Becca out earlier, Adam? Becca has been with some stranger she’s never mentioned before all night? Mel shifts in her seat, shoulders tightening as she turns to face the window for the slightest sense of privacy. “Who’s Adam?”

“My boyfriend.”

Mel freezes. “You...you have a boyfriend?”

“Yes, I just said that.” Becca repeats as frustration starts leaking into her tone. It’s always the sign that Mel needs to change the subject. Deflect, redirect. Adjust herself to get out of the way. She can’t find that urge inside herself right now.

“How, how long have you had a…a…” Mel can’t make herself say it.

“A couple months.” 

A couple months of dating someone without telling Mel. That feels almost impossible, like the kind of thing that happens in her more absurd nightmares. Not real life. Mel blinks, shaking her head almost on instinct. A small part of her is grateful Becca can’t see her right now.

“Adam asked me to watch the fireworks with him and his family so I went.” Becca continues. 

So she went.

Like there was nothing more to it, like no one else should be involved in something like that.

Mel sputters for a minute, something churning in her chest. It’s tantalizing, reactive and confused, but Mel ignores it. Sticks to the right answer. “Why wouldn’t you talk to me first-”

“Because it’s none of your business! You didn’t even want to talk about it when I mentioned doing fireworks separately." Becca snaps, like her off-handed comment a few weeks back was some kind of grand offer. It hadn’t even sounded real. Mel thought Becca was trying to keep her from feeling bad about being scheduled. She’d resolved to make the evening extra fun just to make up for it. 

Apparently it had been a message, just not the one Mel thought. 

Then Becca doubles down. “Sometimes I want to have my own experiences. I get to live my own life and I don’t have to tell you about it.”

Mel reels back like she’s been hit.

Her own life. 

Mel’s whole life has been about Becca’s life. Supporting it, pushing it forward. Paying for it, no matter what side jobs and terrible hours it took to stitch it all together. Mel made it happen. And now Becca thinks that she’s too far in her business.

“I’m your sister.” Mel says, fighting to keep her voice steady, even as her mind auto-completes the rest: and caretaker, and supervisor, and friend, and-

“Sister.” Becca snaps back. “Not mom.”

Mel’s chest aches, lungs squeezing tight around nothing. Her mouth opens and closes for a minute as tears burn in her eyes. Don’t make it Becca’s problem, don’t make it Becca’s problem- “I’m…I’m not trying to be Mom.” She’s positive Frank can hear every word from both sides of the call in the quiet of the car even if she can’t make herself turn and confirm, still staring at the dark sidewalks outside.

“Sometimes it feels like it.” Becca jabs, frustration coating her words.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Mel says as she re-situates her glasses on her nose and tries to pull herself together. Back to neutral, back to accommodating. Back to their normal. “Where are you?”

“I don’t want to tell you. I’m staying until the fireworks are done.”

“What?” The word jumps out of Mel on instinct as she shakes her head. No. That’s not how this is supposed to work. “Becca, I apologized. I’m sorry. Tell me where you are so I can come see you-”

“No. I’m watching the fireworks with Adam and his family like I planned.” Becca says, interrupting Mel like she didn’t notice her speaking. “I have my safety key. I’ll let myself in later when we’re done here. You can watch the fireworks with your own friends.”

Her own friends. 

Mel wants to laugh.

She doesn’t have those. Because everything she does, she does for Becca. And apparently, everything Becca does is for her too. Mel opens her mouth, not quite sure what she’s even supposed to say. Once again it’s taken out of her hands.

“The show is starting, I have to go.” Becca says as the quiet murmur of people on the other end of the line grows louder. “Bye Mel.”

Mel slowly pulls the phone away from her face to see the screen turn back, the call already ended. Her own drawn expression stares back at her from the dark surface.

Becca is safe.

Becca hung up on her.

A hand finds its way into her hair, tight and clawing. Mel can feel herself breathing faster even as she can’t quite admit why.

Becca is alive.

Becca has been hiding a boyfriend from her for who knows how long.

There’s something trapped in Mel’s chest, pushing against the inside of her sternum with a building heat. It feels like it’s growing endlessly, filling up every possible corner of her chest. Begging to be acknowledged. To be let out.

Becca isn’t dead in a ditch.

Becca doesn’t want Mel in her life.

The intersection turns red and the cars in front of them come to a sudden stop, forcing Frank to slam on his brakes. It’s sudden, digging her seatbelt into her chest as a lurching sensation crashes over her already overstimulated nerves - then the glove box drops open, banging into Mel’s knee. 

The sea of emotion in her chest tips over in an instant.

“Fuck!” Mel snaps, grabbing the glove box and smacking the door closed. The latch doesn’t click and she does it again and again, feeling something awful claw its way out of her. “Fuck, fuck- fuck!”

It feels like something is shaking its way out of her skin, screaming out of her in a wave of fear and confusion and fucking hatred. 

This day has contained weeks-worth of ups and downs, and seems to have been months in the making just to ruin her fucking life. Becca lying to her for who knows how long. The deposition. The lawyers needling her, trying to trip her up on questions she doesn’t know the right answer to. The looks everyone gave her today, give her every day, like they’re humoring her just by letting her talk. 

The world presses in on her from every angle as Mel rattles in her bones, thick with heavy eyes and heavier expectations. 

Then the smell of cigarette smoke drifts through her nose, stealing the wind from her sails.

Oh.

She’s still in Frank’s car. 

She’s in his car, throwing a hissyfit in his passenger seat as Frank watches.

Mel lets go of the glove box to grind the heel of her palm into her eyes, pressing them hard enough that she can see spots on the inside of her eyelids. The world outside comes back into focus like a bubble popping around her, reminding her that it doesn't all hold still as she loses control. 

Yelling, cheering, honking.

Life continuing on as normal despite the world-changing shift zinging through Mel’s body. She can feel Frank’s eyes on her beyond the darkness of her eyelids even if she can’t make herself turn and look. One person who looked at her with understanding. One person who looked at her and seemed to see Mel despite everything else in the way. And she just ruined it by throwing a fit in his car after dragging him around all night for no good reason.

“I’m sorry.” Mel whispers, biting her lip harshly. She’s not sure what else to say. 

“Not the first one of those this car has seen.” Frank hums. His voice doesn’t carry a single hint of anger.

Mel drops her head back against the seat, letting her hands fall away to stare at the ceiling and blink back tears. She’s not sure what to say as her chest deflates. She's never been one to hold onto anger for very long, it always seemed to burn hot and bright before flickering out and leaving her behind. Instead her eyes lock onto a little stain on the roof over the passenger seat as something older and more tinged with grief rises to take it's place.

“I did the same thing when Tanner called me a stupid head for the first time.” Frank offers with a half-smile, eyes pulled tight.

Mel lets her head fall sideways to fix him with a heavy look.

Frank winces at his own joke even as she can see how closely he’s watching her. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

Mel shakes her head. It wasn’t, he was just trying to help. That’s all he’s been doing all night. Frank isn’t the problem, Mel is. Something inside her is so bad her own sister doesn’t want to be anywhere near her.

“It’s fine.” Mel says in a thick voice that reveals far too much of what she’s thinking. She knows Frank will catch it before the words are even out.

He turns to face her better, one hand resting on the wheel as they come to another stop at another congested intersection, lights coming in through the windows to dye the car in deep reds and greens. 

“This kind of stuff happens.” Frank tells her, voice far more solemn than before. “It’s not the end.”

It feels like it’s the end of something. Mel isn’t sure she wants to know what just broke.

“Relationships change all the time. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.” Frank offers, eyes both shadowed and highlighted by the strange mixture of lights pouring in the windows.

Mel is shaking her head before he’s done speaking.

Not this relationship. 

Not them.

“We’ve always been together.” Mel explains, trying to put it all to words. They were delivered three minutes apart, Mel following right after Becca like she couldn’t bear to be away from her sister. That’s how Mom and Dad always told it. “Every class, every playdate. We shared everything.” Something bitter wells up in Mel’s chest. “I shared everything.”

And isn’t that something.

Mel shared everything she could with Becca, everything she thought Becca could take. Everything she couldn’t, Mel swallowed down and handled herself. The desire to play with a particular toy that Becca adored. The stress of the deposition she couldn’t bear to soothe Becca over when she was barely holding it together herself. Her tears over losing Mom and Dad so close to each other, choked down until she could spill them into her pillow late that night after making sure Becca was okay. 

She did everything she could to minimize herself, her needs. All Becca saw was hovering.

Frank waits quietly as Mel fumbles for the right words.

“Mom told me it was my job to look out for Becca.” Mel says, trying to press the truth into her words. She wants Frank to reach inside her head and understand what she’s trying to say. Her mom is gone. And the most important thing she told Mel to do was to take care of Becca. “That’s- it’s the only thing I’m allowed to do.”

Mel built her whole life around one single purpose. One other person. She just wanted to be good.

And somehow that was the wrong answer.

The light turns green and they roll through the intersection without a real destination in mind. Moving just to move. Frank’s face is tight, thinking over her words. Mel appreciates his thoughtfulness, the care he wants to give her confession, even if she’s not sure she wants to hear his verdict. She thinks she might vibrate out of her skin if he tells her that she did it wrong. That she held on too tight or let things go too far in an effort to keep them together.

Instead Mel cuts him off first.

“Would you ever say something like that to your kids?”

It’s not a fair question, but Mel wants to ask it anyway. The Frank she knows is a good man, presumably a good dad. He seems like the right person to ask. If watching Becca, if holding on this tight was wrong, would Frank have asked his kids to do it anyway?

“I’m not winning any father of the year awards.” Frank seems to be able to trace her line of thinking, drawing up a self-deprecating smile, one that belongs to a much lighter carpool. There’s a hint of truth lingering in his eyes even as he waves the chance to laugh in front of her. Ten months is a long time to be figuring out treatment. There’s no telling what broke in all that time away. 

Mel doesn’t take the bait. She wants to know.

Frank lets out a slow sigh, scrubbing a hand through his hair roughly. “No, I wouldn’t. It’s too much.” He seems intent on saying his piece, even when they both know that it was a set up to begin with. “They’re their own people. They’d have each other one way or another.”

The air seems to disappear from her lungs.

When’s the last time someone saw her as her own person? 

Not an extension of Becca or her job in the ER, just her. Mel. The twin who came second so even from her first breath she was an ‘and’. Something mean in the back of her head wonders if Becca thinks of her as an ‘and’ too. Maybe that’s why she’s trying so hard to pull away. Cut dead weight. If Mel’s conversation with Liam showed her anything, she knows that she’s not as interesting as Becca. No friends, no hobbies, no personality that’s just hers. 

Just a hollowed out girl propping up someone else who doesn’t seem to want a shadow waiting in the wings anymore.

Mel’s head thunks against the seat, aching with truths she doesn’t really want to hear. The universe doesn’t seem to be very interested in accepting ‘not right now’s’.

“Do you have somewhere you wanna go?” Frank asks, turning down another random street. They seem to be weaving through residential side streets at random, traffic thinning slightly as they find themselves farther and farther from anywhere anyone would care to go.

“Not home. Not work. Not the fucking grocery store. And I don’t know anywhere else in the city.” Mel says, voice curling on a dark laugh. It feels stark, the transition between the city she’s building a life in and the gaping holes of how little she actually knows it. Becca’s words echo through her head. “Spend time with my own fucking friends, isn’t that a joke.”

She’d worry about saying that in front of Frank except she’s certain he already caught everything in the quiet of the car. What’s he gonna say about it? ‘We should spend less time together at work’? Yeah, him and everyone else. He’d find himself in the majority with that.

Frank hits the turn signal a beat before he turns them down another quiet residential street, frowning like he’s really thinking hard. “Want me to drive us off a bridge?”

What.

Mel blinks in confusion, turning to look at him properly which seems to be exactly what he was waiting for. 

“It’s Pittsburgh, you know, the City of Bridges.” Frank offers with a half-smile, something worn down in his eyes that matches the exhaustion in Mel. “I can find a nice spot for us to Thelma-and-Louise it, if you want.”

His words hang in the air for a beat before Mel laughs, slapping a hand over her mouth in surprise. Then she does it again, laughter bubbling up in the darkness of the car like reality has slipped sideways for a moment and absurdity took its place. It’s a dark joke. Darker than she usually finds funny as it rides the line of not really being a joke at all. Something about that just makes it funnier.

The sound of Frank's laughter joining hers eggs Mel on, long past the what the joke warrants it.

She laughs hard enough that tears burn in her eyes, voice tight and hiccuping as that thing stuck in her chest seems to escape in the panting breaths she forces out with each wave of giggles. This feels different than her last release, like it’s emptying something rather than sewing it tighter to the lining of her chest.

When the rolling giggles leave them, forced down into the corners of their mouths and gasping breaths, Mel feels different. Not quite better, but certainly less heavy. Frank looks the same as she glances at him, a half-smile still curling his lips, rounding out his expression nicely.

“This day.” Mel says, shaking her head as she lets it rest against the seat, chest still rising and falling deeply.

“Tell me about it.”

Mel pauses at the sound of something lingering underneath his words before choking on a new wave of laughter.

“What?” Frank asks, looking at her with his head cocked like he wants to be let in on the joke.

“I just remembered this is your first day back.” Mel says, waving her hand like she can encapsulate the last twelve hours in a gesture. It brings another wave of giggles, both of them laughing at the awful just to keep from crying.

“This was a bad day.” Mel says in a giggle. It feels farther away when said in a laugh.

“Yeah.” Frank agrees even as something thoughtful crosses his face. “…Not the worst though.”

Mel takes a breath as she looks up at him. Something specific sits in his eyes and she thinks of their last day together, all the way back in September. It was awful and long and full of far too much tragedy. And then they ended it alone.

No, today isn’t the worst. 

At least this time Frank is still here.

Mel feels the day fall off of her piece by piece in the darkness of the car. They’re alone, only illuminated by passing streetlights and brake lights. A strange lightness, like she felt those few months of college before her moms diagnosis, washes over her. 

“Let me treat you to some ice cream, as a welcome back treat.” Mel offers as she glances at the clock on the radio. “If you don’t have to sprint home.”

That question - if he should be at home with his family, if he even had any time to give tonight let alone as much as he did - floats through the air. There’s only one right answer.

“I’ve got time.” Frank tells her instead, voice light as it skims the edges of something heavier.

Mel takes it for what it is.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had a car in this city since I was sixteen. The quickest route to Dairy Queen is built into my DNA.” Frank tells her proudly, keeping them on the side streets as he speeds up with new purpose.

Mel had no idea he was local.

It’s a nice surprise after the day of them she’s had.

The car feels different without the stifling panic settled in around them. There are no rules, no sense of decorum, no expectations or worries. Just Mel and Frank and a warm summer breeze curling through the windows. Her phone is officially dead, finally out of battery after all of her calling. 

Mel shrugs, dropping it in the cup holder with a quiet thunk.

For the first time in years, there’s no one she needs to be constantly ready to pivot for. For tonight, Mel gets to just live in the moment.

They escape the city proper on a journey designed just to take time. The wind dances in and out of the windows, warm and captivating in the way that late night drives always are. Like the world is stopping for a moment, whittling down to shining lights and dark skies, to ask if this is an end or a beginning.

Maybe it’s both.

Mel drags her hair tie off the end of her braid, thick with sweat and gel, as she finger-combs it out. She tips her hair forward, shaking it out for a long minute. When she straightens up, Frank is watching her with a lingering expression Mel can’t quite name.

“What?”

“I’d do mine, but it’s not nearly as exciting.” Frank shrugs, watching her with a smile. He tosses his head back slightly like a luxurious mane is sure to follow. All the motion serves to do is make those stubborn strands at the front droop into his face.

Mel snorts. “If I clap, will you try that in the drive through for free samples?”

“Only one way to find out.” Frank laughs, something real and honest. The farther they get from the city, the more something boyish and real creeps into his face.

It’s a good look on him.

They pull into the Dairy Queen drive-through two hours after their shift, somehow feeling none and all of it at once. The speaker crackles incomprehensibly for a moment before someone comes on the line to mumble-ask for their orders.

Frank’s face is lit up by the menu as he speaks, the light catching the line of his throat. It’s surprisingly entrancing. They collect their treats from a teenager who looks like he’s too high to even know where he is at the moment and Frank passes over his card without hesitating. 

“You know my treat usually means that person pays for it.” Mel says, raising an eyebrow at Frank.

“Does it? I had no idea…”

The smile tugging at his mouth warms something in Mel’s chest, proof that it was more than just forgetfulness that had him swiping his card. 

Mel isn’t sure the last time someone treated her to a meal.

They pull into a parking stall to dig into their treats while they’re still as frozen as custard ever gets. At the first spoonful, Mel can’t help letting out a groan. It’s the first thing she’s done all day that actually feels like summer. Like she’s stopping and looking around at the world, not just being passed by. 

It’s summer, she’s alive, and this treat is going to give her a brain freeze.

Thank god for all three.

“Fuck. It’s been forever since I had one of these.” Frank groans, scooping up another bite of his blizzard, spoon filled with butterfinger chunks. He looks looser than he has all day, some hidden tension falling out of his shoulders after hours of being held tight.

“Hey.” Mel says, dragging Frank’s attention over to her with a smile. “I’m really glad you’re back.” That doesn’t quite encapsulate everything she wants to say, but it’s close enough. “You were missed.”

“Thanks, Mel.” Frank says with a soft smile before a winces disrupts it. “Although I’m not sure how true that is.”

“I missed you.” Mel repeats herself, unwilling to give him any ground. "That counts."

Frank gives her a long look, before nodding quietly. “Yeah, it does.”

The sky pops nearby, a firework barely clearing the trees in a park across the street as some drunk college kids mess around. Certainly unsanctioned considering how close it is to the ground and how drunk the users sound from their echoing hollers.

They’re doctors who have been treating firework injuries all day. They should go say something.

Mel turns on the radio instead, turning up the volume until she can feel the music thrumming through her chest like a second heartbeat.

Forty days and forty nights, I waited for a girl like you to come and save my life.

She takes another bite of her ice cream, relishing in the taste.

The cracked pavement of the parking lot baked in yellow streetlights and an illegal fireworks show a few dozen feet away. Eating food neither of them can really afford. It’s good.

Somehow it’s really really good.

All the days I waited for you, you know the ones who I’d never find someone like you,

Mel turns to look at Frank over the console and finds him already watching her. They smile at one another over nothing in particular, feeling the strange openness of a summer night swirling around them.

‘Cause you were out of my league, all the things I believed,

You were just the right kind-

Yeah, you were more than just a dream.

The oreos in the ice cream set off sparks in Mel’s mind, matching the ones in the park. She never gets cookies and cream with Becca. The cookies are too soft for her taste and it’s always been Mel’s style to get the same as her just in case something happens and they need a backup.

It turns out Mel likes cookies and cream. A lot.

She had no idea.

Mel takes another bite of her treat, smiling at Frank as fireworks pop.

She’s curious about what else she likes.