Chapter Text
Frank has a terrible track record of pretending. He likes to think he’s good at it, but Abby’s always teased him about being an open book.
On their first date, which was dinner on the campus lawn after their anatomy class in sophomore year of undergrad, it had poured rain all over their picnic blanket and the tiny peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he cut the crusts off of. He tried to play it off, but his hopes of this relationship continuing were probably quickly dwindling if he didn’t even have the sense to check the weather. But Abby didn’t mind, laughing as she wiped the water repeatedly off the glasses he used to wear before leaning in to kiss him.
It was two weeks after Doctor Adamson’s death and seven months into his R1 year when Abby showed up at the ED, already in labor with Tanner. Between plastic sheets and PPE that covered every inch of his body, Frank kneeled next to the gurney, with Abby squeezing his hand down to the bone until the sounds of a baby’s cry echoed.
In a ditch of death and sick, Frank felt it was almost wrong of him to be so fucking happy and so fucking sad at the same time. He had missed so much of Abby’s pregnancy with her living with her parents when he couldn’t take the risk of getting her sick, but somehow, holding Tanner made all those lonely nights worth it. And he tried not to think of Abbot and Robby and Dana and Perlah and everyone who was barely keeping their nose above water.
At work, he tried not to think about home. At home, he tried not to think about work. He failed at both.
Abby was the one to call Robby without him knowing, asking if Frank could take off for two weeks maximum. Turns out, Robby was just about to call her too and warn her that Frank was banned from the hospital till he could get through a shift without crying in the bathroom about missing his family.
If Frank had to pick two people that knew him better than anyone else in the world, it would be Abby and Robby. He’s not so sure that’s true anymore.
The drugs were the turning point.
Frank taps his foot against the floor, keeping his eyes locked on the door and waiting to clamber out of the seat the second he sees Robby’s figure. He keeps his back flat against the chair, hoping the pressure would keep the aches down. His side was still tender from where it slammed into the cart, and the icepack he was supposed to be pressing to his face was floppy and melted against the table.
He can’t tell how long it’s been since he’s come into the breakroom, but he’s heard three alarms for trauma incomings and has made no move to get up. He’s also not sure how that's faring up with earning back trust and reliability from others.
Speaking of others, no one has stepped foot in the breakroom since he’s decided to host his pity party for one. Even Whitaker, whose body angled to the entrance but with one wary glance inside, whipped right around and hasn’t tried again since. Frank can’t say he’s surprised to be a pariah at work, as that scenario was one pretty prevalent in his nightmares, but somehow it's worse than he imagined and simultaneously surprising he’s being let off so easily.
“You’re attracting a lot of attention, sitting here all by yourself,” Mohan says, leaning against the door frame and disrupting his train of thought. “Want some company?”
Case in point.
Frank shrugs, waving at one of the other unoccupied chairs. Then he frowns, a small bit of concern in his voice, “I thought you were on a case with Javadi. Is everything okay?”
She slumps across from him, somehow looking more exhausted than she was when she was having a panic attack. “Everything’s… is there a word for less than okay?”
“Tolerable?”
“Mediocre,” she nods, continuing on without hearing him. “The case was whatever, Javadi handled it. But if you were asking if I’m still on King Robinavitch’s shit list, then I’d say I’m only a few inches below your name. But who ever cared about that anyway?”
He leans his head back against the bulletin board behind him, the edge poking him in the crown of his skull. It’s another comforting pressure. “Openly uncaring about a superior's efforts to make you an emotionless machine? What’d you do with the real Samira Mohan?” He drolls.
She huffs a laugh which Frank counts as a success. In the three years Mohan’s been at PTMC, now four, Frank can’t say they were particularly close. They’ve worked on only a handful of cases together before Robby deemed her worthy enough to lead her own about midway through her second year. Other than polite but short conversations at outings or nights after shifts in the park, they didn’t really talk much about anything past patients and the occasional: “How’s the kids?”
There was always an underlying rush to get to the best patients, to do the wildest procedures in order to gain some prestige. And considering the fact that Frank was always vying for Robby’s attention, he did it at any means necessary to prove himself. Including participating in the competition neither of them named. He was Robby’s favorite. She was Abbot’s. That was just the way it was.
But when Mohan presses her palms against the table to get up, Frank almost has the urge to tell her not to leave. He doesn’t have time to think of why before she rises to her feet and walks to the fridge instead.
“I’d need a drink before I can answer that,” Mohan mumbles, sticking her head in the fridge before pulling two drinks out. “But for now, I’ll settle for…” her nose scrunches as she reads the label of the Red Bull, “Curuba Elderflower. Where does Dana even find these?”
“I thought you hated energy drinks,” he recalls, taking the other green can as she retakes her seat.
She hums, taking a small sip and making a face, “I do.” Then she says quietly, “Lot’s changed since I’ve seen you last.”
He busies himself with taking his own swig. The taste is horrible. He downs half of it in one go.
“You look awful, by the way,” Mohan says conversationally.
Frank's face shifts to a deadpan. “Back at you.”
She smiles, tired and hair slipping out of her bun, still slightly pale as before and the collar of her undershirt a shade darker with sweat, and agrees with him wholeheartedly. He’s had panic attacks before; he didn’t envy her. Thankfully, they don’t ask if the other is alright, and maybe that’s why Frank’s enjoying this conversation a fraction more than anyone else’s he’s had. He’s not up for being psychoanalyzed for the umpteenth time today.
“It’s nice having you back though, Langdon.” Mohan laughs at the way he lifts a brow in doubt. “Maybe it’s nice that Robby isn’t just only on my back now.”
He lifts his Red Bull in a show of commiseration, “To Doctor Robinavitch’s most disappointing residents.”
The clink of the cans together is hollow-sounding, but it's a sense of normalcy that's comforting in a place that’s no longer normal or comforting. It also signals McKay’s entrance into the breakroom.
“Might wanna include me in that cheer,” she says in greeting, beelining straight for the fridge herself and rooting around for her lunch.
“Ouch,” Frank mumbles. “What happened?”
The two watch as her groans of annoyance increase, shuffling through the paperbags and ziplocs that had a stronger chance of being three weeks old than fresh this morning.
“Skin necrosis caused by xylazine,” Mckay mutters. “Treated in the park, but I’ve been trying to get the patient to come into the hospital for a long time now. Took Ogilvie with me-” Her rant is shortly cut off by Mohan’s exaggerated groan, but continues with more heat behind her tongue. “We were gone for less than ten minutes, but Robby bit off my head for it anyway. Roxie died during, my hospice patient,” Frank’s face twists into a wince, “so, ergo: disappointing resident. Who the fuck brought a salad of just wilted lettuce and two slices of cucumber?”
Back turned to them and head still ducked into the fridge, Frank can just make out his name scribbled in sharpie onto the container that she holds out above her head. “‘S mine,” he flushes when Mohan chortles a laugh before ‘trying’ to stifle it.
McKay has a smile on her face when she turns around, both lunches in hand, hers a turkey sandwich. “What happened to your disgusting chicken and quinoa bowls?”
Well, he didn’t exactly have access to a kitchen these days-
“Got sick of them,” he says instead, fiddling with the lid of the container. The sight of the lettuce looks even more depressing than McKay described; he didn’t even have any dressing to make it half-interesting.
“So,” Mohan begins, not even trying to sound conversational as she says, “Are you going to press charges?”
His fork stabs into one of the two cucumbers with more force than necessary and he closes his eyes for a quick second that is just enough time to miss Mohan’s and McKay’s shared glances. “For a punch?” Frank snorts with an eyeroll. The action sends a small pulse through his head, but he’s too familiar with headaches these days that he passes it off easily. “Not the worst I’ve gotten from a patient before, and probably won’t be the last. Besides, I don’t need any more attention on me.”
McKay’s eyes flare a fraction in alarm, before asking slowly, “Is he still giving you a hard time?”
Frank sighs, dropping his fork without even taking a bite. “I’ve been here for less than a singular shift. I wasn’t expecting him to forgive me the second we saw each other.”
“Yeah, but he shouldn’t have berated you in front of everyone like that,” Mohan adds.
“You heard that?” His stomach sinks, shame prickling at his neck.
“Pretty sure half of the hospital did,” she supplies unhelpfully.
Frank drops his head, mumbling under his breath, “Fantastic.”
The opened door of the breakroom lets in the noise of the ED, flowing as one tumultuous machine that was on the brink of collapse. He was wrong before; there was nothing “well-oiled” about this place anymore. Disease flickers between doctor to doctor, like each step taken was leaving a trail of disorder, seeping into everything around until it was too late.
The facade is what almost killed him. Frank used to think so highly of himself. He was a doctor; he knew what he was doing. He knew the proper dosage, what number of pills were the limit of his intake before he fell on the wrong side of the tracks, enough for Abby to not notice and to still function around his kids. He timed his doses to make sure he wasn't under at work, until the throes of withdrawal licked at his heels by the time he finished his shift. When he laid in bed at night, with his back unable to twitch without wincing, he'd reach for the pills he tucked behind one of his medical textbooks in the bedside table and follow the relief into unconsciousness.
At the time, he was too cowardly to admit it was all a front.
He got into countless arguments with Abby about his attitude, how his emotions would change with the flick of a switch. Almost once a week Dana would make him take five when he’d get into another row with a patient. He was irritable, paranoid, and utterly wrong.
It was futile to think rehab was a good enough penance, and Frank knows recovery wasn’t just for him. He knows. But in the end… everything falls back to Robby. In his head, in the thoughts he shielded from Arthur and Abby and the administrative board and the doctors at the facility, Robby was his addiction.
In an unhealthy, visceral, ugly need for validation that he never wants to admit to a living soul or the part of his brain that asks him why, why, why-
“You’re not going to eat your poor man’s salad?” Cassie asks. Her eyes are focused in a calculating way, like she had the ability to scan his brain and know exactly what was wrong with him.
Frank’s food has long since been forgotten and his appetite is as miniscule as his worth. “Not feeling like eating right now.”
“You’ve lost weight.”
“Thanks.”
McKay sighs, “Frank-”
“I’m fine, Cassie.”
“You and I both know that’s not true,” she pushes.
He doesn't even glance at Mohan to know she agrees wholeheartedly. A strange feeling comes back that he's had since morning: cut open and naked for everyone to gawk at, and yet too ruined for anyone's glances to last more than a second. It was everyone's duty, that when they stepped foot into this hospital, they were to be perfect. Frank fought for this the majority of his life, and yet only ten short months ago, he slipped through the cracks.
A swell of anger surges through his chest, and Frank's too slow to stop the biting, "I don't need another therapist," he directs at Cassie. He gets up before she could even disappointingly frown at him, tossing his lunch in the garbage bin on the way out.
Frank enters the ED with conviction, determinedly pushing the stares aside and heads straight for one of the spare computers. He ignores everything around him, doesn't check who occupies the table across from him, and doesn't offer a single glimpse to the trauma rooms in search of Robby. His jaw tightens, his brows furrow, and his shoulders draw, but he pushes everything else out. Only the sharp brightness of the screen that burns his irises are what he focuses on, and the only thoughts in his mind were of medicine.
But nothing, nothing, was ever so easy.
Cassie and Mohan leave the breakroom mere minutes after he (albeit dramatically) stormed out, casting sideways looks as they go their separate ways, Mohan to the North rooms to rejoin with Javadi, and McKay sentenced to three hours at Triage Penitentiary. Frank brushes their stares off, not even looking the two in the eyes as he details an asthmatic attack he treated during the early moments at chairs.
His fingers are slow and stumbling over the keys no matter how much he tries to control the spasms, like they were appendages severed from his nervous system. If his scrubs weren't black, he figured everyone would be able to see how sweat-soaked he's become. Frank knows he's a sorry sight to anyone in his vicinity, the opposite of what he was trying to achieve. He came out of rehab with a mission in his heart to prove literal rehabilitation, and the first chance he had, he failed. But, along with sucking at pretending, Frank is stubborn like none other. He makes sure the feeling in his chest doesn't succumb to Robby's vitriol. He doesn't want to think if it was actually true.
This job will fuck you up if you let it. You let it.
The words taunted him when he slept, when he woke up this morning and started his car, when he put on his scrubs before walking into the fire.
He had decided over breakfast- a granola bar that was half open and a week old- that it'd be in the best interest of his sobriety to head to an NA meeting after work, but judging by the increasing weight of his eyelids, Frank thinks he'll pass out the second he gets into his car. Which, good. The quicker he stops spiraling about today, the better.
"You misspelled ‘pericardium’," a soft voice said to his left. The shimmer of blonde hair in fluorescent lightning fills his peripheral vision before Mel continues, pointing at the words on the screen with her finger. "And 'pneumothorax’. And, um, 'the’."
If it were anyone else in this God forsaken hospital, he would've snarled in their face and let out every ounce of anger he's kept inside since the moment he stepped foot in here. But Mel is a sight for sore eyes. So, he fixes them without question.
It's slightly embarrassing, but Frank takes the help in stride. His hands don’t shake in her presence just like she doesn't lean away when he edges into her space. Mel and Frank chart together for three whole minutes straight without interruption. Those one-hundred-eighty seconds are of the most normal he’s felt since longer than he can recall.
“I looked for you," Mel says eventually, keeping her eyes locked on her own screen and voice directed at him.
Frank's typing falters.
"You know, before Pitt Fest," she elaborates, sneaking one look at him and noticing the way his jaw tightens. "I had a really cool case and, and I really wanted to tell you about it."
He tries to imagine it from her side, the disappointment she probably held with how abruptly he disappeared after they had spent the better part of the day together, especially since it was hard to miss the way everyone else usually disappears on her, unintentional or not.
He had meant what he said, how Mel was a sensitive person but they needed her.
Now, it's hard not to believe he's sensitive too, that maybe he'd just been hiding it behind cynical remarks and inappropriate jokes and lulls under benzos or the fact that he's spent all waking hours of today on the edge of a breakdown.
I never had a complete meltdown, he once said.
How fucking ironic.
He shakes his head. "I'm sorry about that. I was…”
Mel doesn't let him finish and he appreciates her all the more for it. "I know. I'm glad you're back."
He scoffs, missing the way her eyebrows ruffle. "I'm not sure others feel the same."
"Like who?"
"I mean- Robby," he says it like it's obvious. "And, you know, Santos."
"Have you spoken to them today?"
A shaky laugh cuts through his throat. "Yeah. Neither went exactly as planned. I... I guess I'm just having a hard time trying to rationalize everything."
Mel tilts her head like she's fighting an urge to say something.
"And, uh, I- I want to be here more than anything, but... ten months is a long time. Two patients died under my care and another got carted out by security. The chief attending doesn't believe I'm equipped to be out on the floor and I can't go two feet around here without being gawked at. Somehow I'm even more unreliable as a senior resident now than when I was on drugs."
A thin "Oh," slips past her lips that makes his stomach sink low. A gross part of him thinks Mel's probably very grateful things didn't seem to be headed in a good direction for him, and wouldn't have to bear through another 'mope session' for the rest of her life.
"Yeah," Frank agrees simply.
Silence lapses between them, familiar to all the other times today when no one knew what to say. It makes him feel like one colossal fuck-up. He pushes his head down, trying to focus on the notes written, but instead frowns, knowing how unfair he's being.
“Sorry,” he mumbles sorely. “Didn't mean to be such a buzzkill. Fellowship in cynicism, remember?”
“That’s alright. I’m not going to, um, fault you- you know, for like your feelings. This past year has been tough, for some more than others, but we all made it here eventually. We come here everyday, you know, sheltering our own… thoughts and things to help save a stranger. You came here today, Doctor Langdon, despite what you think others think about you or how you think about yourself,” Mel continues lightly. “I think that’s worth something.”
Frank smiles half-heartedly, “I don’t think it’s that simple.”
Mel shrugs back, “Maybe not. But we don’t always get everything right the first time.”
His head moves faster than he could notice, locking eyes with her. There’s compassion on her face, enchanting in a way he can’t decipher, and the crinkle of her eyes only make it more so. Then, faint warmth builds in his cheeks and down his neck, as Frank spins the ring around his finger in distraction. It sits loose on his body, the evidence of rehab showing up in more ways than one, and loud enough for others to observe. The metal sits cold on his skin, and when he shifts it upward, the span of skin underneath that used to be significantly paler now matches the rest. And some nights, right after he switches off the lights to his bare bedroom, the moonlight glimmers from across the window, right to the ring left on his dresser, gathering dust where it sat.
Those nights are the worst, when he tries not to go straight to the worst-case scenario, a life where he’s alone and Abby has taken the kids far away he can’t reach. The toys of theirs he managed to sneak into his packed suitcases rotting in bins labeled after his children, the last photos of them he took on his phone, printed on the nightstand so he can sit and memorize every inch of their faces.
Maybe he didn’t get it right the first time, and maybe things with Abby will never work out again, but how long could he last in that world? How long could he stay sober?
Frank breathes out slowly, resurfacing. “When did you get so good at pep-talks?”
Mel giggles, glancing pointedly through her glasses at him, “I learned from the best. Plus, therapy helps.”
“You go?”
“Mmhm,” she hums as an answer. “It’s provided through my sister’s facility. I took it up soon after Pitt Fest and- yeah. You know, I believe that every doctor should attend at least routinely. I did, um, a study in grad school, actually, about the rates of fatigue and depression of people in healthcare. About half experience burnout on a regular basis, and suicide rates are thirty-five-ish-percent higher in healthcare works than non. About twelve of doctors who become reliant on perscript-” Mel suddenly stops herself. “Sorry. Foot-in-mouth syndrome.”
He nods, more understanding than most. Then his head tilts, answering her unspoken question. “I don’t think I’d be allowed in this building if I didn’t spill my guts to a shrink three hours a week. I honestly was hoping that it would make me more zen or- or some shit, turns out it just dregs out all your shit to some- fucking person who has no idea how messed up you really are.” Frank freezes, biting down on his tongue. The sheepish contortion of his face reflects the one that rested on Mel’s face not a moment ago. “Sorry,” he apologizes again, wincing. “I think I forgot how to talk to people.”
“I don’t think I ever learned.”
A startled laugh pushes past his mouth in surprise, one matching in tone with the one from Mel. It’s a strange thing to commiserate over together, but if Frank were to choose anyone to do it with him, his answer wouldn’t change. Without that feigned shield of confidence he used to wield, they were simply two painfully awkward people, who had hard times finding ways to fit in without fear of being booted and who cared.
Right on schedule, a bit of that awkwardness begins to seep in, like when he’d overshare too much just to fill the silence.
“Well, um, how’s your- jaw?” Her words stutter over each other as she speaks, curling her shoulders when Frank releases a breath of a chuckle.
“How’s your head?”
“Ugh,” Mel groans, her typing stopping abruptly as her ears turn red. “Don’t remind me.”
“I mean, it wasn’t so bad."
She raises a disbelieving eyebrow at him, “Not considering the fact that my patient was a criminal, he mentioned how much I reminded him of his mother. Who was dead. Is dead. I think. I mean, I hope.” Mel flashes dark, cheeks absolutely burning as her eyes go wide. Frank’s shoulders are shaking with unstifled laughs. “Not that I wish his mother was dead, but just that I hope- you know, he doesn’t believe she’s dead, when she’s really not- Not that I would have any way of knowing, but-”
“Mel!” He chortles, “Mel, I think I get what you mean. I wouldn’t want to date someone who said I remind them of their parents.” His nose wrinkles at the thought while he’s trying to quell the rambling before it could get out of hand.
“Or if they didn’t like boba,” Mel says, almost strangely serious that has Frank pausing. “Or the renaissance fair. But I think the criminality of it all speaks the highest.”
“I mean, technically speaking,” He starts, gearing toward a wide grin when Mel peers at him, waiting, “I kind of am a criminal, too.”
A beat. A large eyeroll. A smothered laugh. And a hand that presses against his shoulder with barely any force.
“I don’t think the circumstances were quite the same, Doctor Langdon. Though, I um, I think in the next therapy session, you should definitely speak about your self-deprecation habits. And your jokes.”
“Oh, come on, I’m not all that bad. I do like boba.”
Mel’s face lights up. “Really? And the renaissance fair?”
“I’ve never been before. It’s not really Abby’s scene,” Frank admits, scrunching his nose. “But you know, maybe one day when Penny gets through the day without three tantrums and Tanner stops thinking anything but firetrucks are lame.”
Maybe the next time a fair rolls by near Pittsburgh, he could beg Abby for a weekend with the kids for it; their ‘custody deal’ wouldn’t change until his first year of sobriety has passed.
“That sounds awesome,” Mel interrupts, practically glowing still. “I think they’d love it. I used to go all the time when I was little.”
“My parents used to take me to this Fort Pitt Museum every summer when I was a kid. I had this strange obsession with pirates at the time.”
“Oh, no way.”
“Yeah,” Frank smiles, his chair slightly tilted away from the computer and towards Mel. “I don’t think my children have any choice but to be nerds as they grow up.”
If they even had a chance to grow up around him.
Disregarding that thought quickly, Frank looks closely to see Mel squint her eyes, her mouth opening slowly as though trying to work herself to speak on something. He tries to rush past that before she could have the chance-
“Doctor Langdon, are you alright?” Mel rushes to explain herself when she catches sight of the sharp exhale he sends through teeth. “It’s just, um, whenever you talk about your kids, you… get a little sad.”
His nail scratches against his thumb sharply. “Uh, I’m fine, I guess it’s just because they- grow up so fast.”
She doesn’t look like she believes him. “Are you sure, because-”
“Mel.”
“O-okay.”
He feels awful, not wanting to take his problem out on Mel, but there were too many emotions flowing through his veins that left him… temperamental.
"Night shift is about to start," Mel mentions lightly, veering the conversation away once she seems to fully notice his demeanor. "How 'bout you come with me to check on my patients one last time before rounds? I think I saw a room full of people dressed in sailor hats and costumes down in South Four."
"Yeah," Frank nods, grateful. "Hopefully handoffs won't run too long:"
"I think we both know that's wishful thinking," she says, pointing a finger up at the full board, only growing longer as nighttime arrives with a whole new set of problems.
At the nurses' station behind them, the phone rings with a shrill alarm, soon followed by the sound of Dana's hurried footsteps and the sequential yelling into the air.
"Twenty-foot fall incoming, three minutes out! Trauma Two is open!”
Mel and Frank share a quick look, amusement lining the tiredness of their eyes. Mel sighs, her braid looking a little more frazzled, “Right on cue.”
Robby follows Dana’s voice like a compass, already shifting his gaze around the central hub for any residents available. His focus catches Mel first, and while Frank isn't able to catch actual eye contact with the man, he knows Robby can see him. But when the attending speaks, he only speaks to Mel.
"Trauma Two, Doctor King," he directs, not unkindly but stern enough to keep Frank at bay.
Mel jolts out her seat at the order, ruffling her eyebrows she notices he makes no move to invite Frank along too. "Just me?"
The lag in Robby's response has steel forming in Frank's chest that shouldn't belong and he finds the courage to follow her out of his own seat, too. "I can-" Robby's head snaps to the side and barks out a short, "Ogilvie!", effectively cutting him off. The fourth-year exiting from the lounge looks like a deer caught in headlights, but rushes to Robby's aid all the same, eager at any opportunity to show off.
"With all due respect, Doctor Robby, but I think we could use Doctor Langdon's help, it seems to be serious and-"
“Are you not capable of handling this case?”
She stops dead in her tracks as Frank grits his teeth to keep from speaking. “No, I-”
"Then I suggest you pull yourself together, Doctor King. Understood?”
Frank's tongue is burning blindly, but he keeps his eyes trained on his lap. It's the coward's way out but Frank hasn't felt brave in a long time.
"Robby," Dana growls, her lips set in a sharp line.
"Understood, Doctor King?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Frank sees the way Mel's hands twitch at her sides to keep from rubbing together in a nervous tick he remembers she has. Her neck stills and tightens, and if he was looking, he might’ve noticed the way her eyes unfocused, trying to block out everything around her. It's another standstill, weapons drawn and readying for attack, or maybe all Frank can feel is the tension creeping through every crack on the floor, like a tea kettle microseconds from boiling over or like the string of a bow stretched until it releases its arrow. The fluorescent lights pulse above, loud and whining in his ears, and the wheels of the cart Princess is driving screech against the linoleum in just the right pitch to make goosebumps dance along his arm. There’s a chill in the air that keeps his lips dry, the cracks catching on his tongue when he runs it over them.
The state of Frank and Mel is awfully comparable.
“Yes, yes, understood- Doctor Robinavitch.”
Robby's face is set, hands stuffed in the pockets of his scrub pants, and nods at Mel. When Frank peeks through his eyelashes- only just for a moment does he see something that makes his breath hitch. Robby’s eyes are weary, skin pale like he hasn't seen the sun in a week, shoulders so lax that they show off the prominent collar bones of a too frail man.
His face isn't shielded in anger or vehemence at Frank, maybe even knowing he's crossed a line with Mel. Frank would rather endure everyday of this job in pain and never speaking to Mel and cowering from Robby than have Mel on the other side of the attending's goodwill.
“Good.” Robby says curtly when time becomes stale.
Ogilvie is still hanging back behind Robby's shoulder like a spectator, for once not speaking the first thing that pops into his head.
He’s expecting Mel to follow Robby's half turned body, only surprised- and with a shred of more guilt- when she turns to face him, uncaring of those watching.
"I’ll come find you when I'm done," Mel promises, looking pained as she does so.
Frank’s nod glitches, trying to smile dismissively while inwardly cursing out Robby for making her uncomfortable just for the sake of punishing him.
"One minute out!" Dana calls.
"Doctor King," Robby repeats.
Robby is still the Chief Attending, so Mel doesn't argue any further. Her shoulders deflate as she affixes one last sullen look Frank's way before following the older man's retreating back as he leads Ogilvie to the ambulance bay.
“Hey.”
McKay is back. Before he could exchange ‘pleasantries’ with her again, or perhaps apologize, she sets a bottle of Advil on the edge of his station.
Frank stares at the bottle two inches from his left arm. A foul taste arrives at the back of his tongue- rotten fruit that was once fresh and sweet straight from the market. It’s all he could see for a moment, like the rest of the world was wiped out. It’s simple fucking ibuprofen, nothing compared to the opiods and narcotics he’s been around all day, and yet its the most tempting thing he’s laid eyes on.
That feeling is immediately followed by complete shame and just another reminder that he hasn’t healed. He was just proving everyone right; addicts always sink below someday.
He thinks back to the moment McKay let him see a speck of her own journey. “Why would you-”
“You don’t need to punish yourself just because you’re an addict, Frank,” she asserts, her voice low enough so it doesn’t carry far enough to be heard by others. “If you need it, you take it.”
Frank lets out a bitter laugh. “Pretty sure that ideology’s exactly how I got into the situation I’m literally in right now.”
McKay doesn’t join him in his snickering, not that he expected her to. Instead, she shakes her head, shifting slightly on her feet like she was also uncomfortable with putting a part of herself on the table no one in the hospital knew about.
“If you deprive yourself of something necessary long enough, the hunger will get so intense you’ll resort to the extreme.”
His eyes flick around his surroundings. “Look, I’d really not have this conversation in the middle of the ED-”
“And maybe the guilt and shame will stop you and you’ll turn to other things to fill that void, until that too brings you right back to the beginning.” Her voice lowers even more when Frank’s posture falters, unable to completely look at her. “Frank. You’re in pain. I can see it, they can see it. Why can’t you?”
Frank swallows thinly, the action harsh on his choked throat. He ducks his head, his hands falling from the computer to lay in his lap, as the bottle comes in full view.
“Cassie, I don’t think I’m- it’s just a bad day. I don’t, I don’t need this.”
“Yeah.” McKay nods, then almost slowly, almost deliberately adjusts her head, so Frank’s viewpoint reaches Trauma Two behind her. “That feeling's been going around.” Then she shifts back, blocking Robby’s body and he feels something like sadness. “Doesn’t mean you gotta go down with the sinking ship.”
His bitter laughter is back. “I think I’m what’s pulling everyone down if anything.”
“You give yourself too much credit. This place’s been a live wire for a while now. Besides, what kind of hospital would we be if half the employees didn’t have mental health crises every other day?”
“That’s awfully perceptive,” Frank says, squinting his eyes at McKay.
She shrugs again in response. Then, Cassie draws up a hand from her side, using the lightest touch to drag the bottle closer to Frank, the medicine now directly in front of him. She taps the lid twice before stuffing her hand back in her pocket quickly.
“You’re treating it like it’s poison,” he comments. His mouth feels disconnected from every other part of his body. Like its feigning calm when everything else is sounding the alarm.
“I mean, in some ways it is,” Cassie agrees morbidly. “Stuff like this is an unsteady row of dominoes. One wrong step and-” She stops herself. Record scratch. “Well, you know.”
The pause of silence is killer.
“You're doing a sucky job at trying to get me to take these.”
That finally draws a real laugh from McKay, which successfully breaks the tense lure that only two addicts in recovery could recognize. It's a peculiar form of comradery between them- or maybe Frank's slightly overzealous in the idea that he's not totally as alone as he believed- that could grow as time passes.
And he does want time to pass. He waits and waits for the day to come when the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up isn't a pill. Maybe it'd be his kids or Abby or what he’d like for breakfast or what kind of cases he’d get during shift.
"Is this the part where you pull the cliche that 'time heals all wounds?" Frank had said once on Arthur's couch.
Arthur tutted, pushing his glasses up with his finger. The creak of the frame made Frank itch. “Is that what you want to hear?”
He only snorted in response.
“I think you know better than most that things aren't always so easy. No point in giving you false narratives.”
He let out a snort, eyes focused on the frays on the cushions.
“Time didn’t heal your back. Time didn't fix your marriage. Time hasn't fixed your relationship with Robby. You've said you've contacted him three times since September. It's June now.”
That was one of the few things Frank actually liked about Arthur besides his affinity for keeping snacks on the table next to the couch, specifically those caramels that he found to be disgusting. Once, when Arthur was going on and on about fucking whatever, Frank ate his way through the whole stash to stop himself from jumping out the window.
Arthur didn't lie to him. He didn't take it easy on him or let Frank invite him to his pity parties- which, fuck him. Frank was having the worst year of his life; he thinks that should allow for at least some deprecation.
“C’mon, Frank,” Cassie says. “You can’t go the rest of the day hunching around like you are now.”
“First, rude-”
“And it’ll do you no good if you develop some repulsion to modern medicine. People might think you’re one of those doctors.” She lifts a brow in success when he rolls his eyes, the gesture almost fond.
“As opposed to the junkie doctor?”
“Funny,” Cassie says bluntly, but Frank sees the uplift in her lips. “Take the damn medicine and get on the floor before I sic Dana on you.”
Frank snorts, absentmindedly picking at his thumb nail. The raw skin feels warm in a way that should come across as a warning not to continue, but he digs harder, the blunt edge of his nail breaking the thin skin. The second the warmth of blood reaches his senses, he bits his tongue and reaches for the bottle. Faster than he can perceive, second-nature, two pills are soon nestled into his palm, waiting patiently.
It’s the first time he’s poised to take over-the-counter medicine since before that day. Frank’s been fervently stubborn, taking every wince and creak of his back over the shoulder, trying to find semblance of relief elsewhere. Surprisingly, Frank is a great artist- when he tries.
“I thought I said no second therapist,” Frank says feebly when he can’t move to take them just yet, his throat feeling choked.
Cassie shrugs, letting out a loose smile. “Thought I’d get a head start on my psychiatric fellowship. But, as your ‘self-appointed-second-therapist’, I do come bearing gifts.” Tucked into her scrub pant’s pocket, she lifts another Red Bull, cracking it open for him and placing it close. “Swiped it from behind Dana’s desk. She wouldn’t let anyone steal from your stash,” Cassie says proudly, winking. “Not the best to take with medicine but it’ll do. Harrison likes to take his vitamin-c with gatorade. Just don’t tell Dana.”
Just do it, Doctor Langdon, one side of him calls.
Do it once, how easy will the next time be? The other side sings. How long until you're sweating into cardboard mattresses at the Pittsburgh Center for Recovery again?
Be a fucking doctor. Be a fucking doctor Robby can be proud of-
“Won’t tell a soul,” Frank mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut for a split second before downing the pills. A reflex in his throat almost has him puking it out into his lap but he forces it down, wrangling the feeling away.
He misses Cassie’s next words, and he misses the way she turns away eventually, turning a corner in his sideview to head back to triage. He misses the next few moments altogether, like he’s gone deaf and mute and blind all at once. It’s not even a black screen he sits in front of; he’s been dropped into the void of outer space, past the planets and stars and the sun, where perhaps a cold and lonely end is met. That was one thing he missed a lot in rehab. In his mind, the center was akin to a prison, complete with an allotted one recreational hour that he used up by sitting on a bench, basking in the sun’s glow that only showed its face from behind the clouds when there were only five minutes remaining.
Then, like a quickshot, he’s back in his body, only a distant sway of dizziness lingering behind.
Voices grow louder as another trauma is wheeled in, and just past the sea of bodies, Frank can make out Al-Hashimi relaying with the paramedics. He should be leaping out of his seat to join her, back pain be damned, but it's as if some invisible force ties down his limbs to the chair. He watches like a spectator as Joy starts applying pressure to a wound in the chest. It’s too evocative of the five-year-old from this morning, the way the thin line of Al-Hashimi’s lips harden as time ticks on worryingly.
The pills sit in his stomach like a vice. And Frank can’t help but think how long he has to live like this. His back may never fully heal, and each day that passes is one less in which he could still carry his kids before he’s too winded. Frank wonders what he’ll do after he finishes his residency; if he’ll pack his bags and apply to any other hospital that’ll take him.
“Doctor Langdon?” Javadi sidles next to him, an anxious edge in her voice. Her gaze keeps switching from the bruise on his jaw to his eyes and down to the Advil still in front of him, screw cap off.
“Hey,” Frank says, almost hurriedly as though to draw attention away from the bottle. He shifts a bit in the spinning chair, till he is fully facing her and the pills aren’t in her direct eyeline. “Cases going okay?”
She fidgets, nodding quickly, “yeah, Doctor Mohan and I discharged a patient with an acute allergic reaction in South Ten, but that’s not why I- I wanted to let you know that admin reached out.”
The end of her sentence uplifts as though in question, but Frank deflates. He was hoping to avoid the trek upstairs as long as he could, at least until time drew closer to his drug test deadline.
“They had me file an incident report for it, and will probably make you too, as well as the worker's comp. But they wanted you to confirm if you would like to press charges or-”
Frank shakes his head, cutting her off. “I’d rather just forget about the whole thing all together.”
“Are- are you sure? ‘Cause-”
“Really,” he repeats firmly. Then he sighs, rubbing a hand against his thigh to keep from clenching. “It’s not that big of a deal, truly. As long as you’re okay,” Frank pauses, waiting for her to nod in reaffirmment, “then no harm, no foul.”
Javadi’s nervous nature settles some at his joke. “You do know there’s ruptured capillaries all along your mandibular border.”
Frank grins, rolling his eyes lightly. “Thank you for the assessment, Dr. J,” smiling even wider when she flushes pink. “Now get going before Robby comes back and makes me stock shelves in the Infectious Diseases Ward.”
Javadi is laughing as she leaves and Frank is strictly reminded of Penny. It follows the same crescendo, rapid and high-pitched like a dolphin’s. It’s been a while since she’s laughed like that to him.
“Fuck me,” he mutters, the light moment slipping away as fast as it came. His emotions always seemed to be a fucking zigzag, headed one way before abruptly flipping over.
He grasps the bottle of Advil, screwing it tight in his hands and gets up. Making his way to Dana, he tosses back the rest of the Red Bull and chucks the can into the nearest bin before she could see. Though, it would remind him of better times when the biggest chewing out he’d get was for his caffeine intake.
“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” Dana mutters, watching him from above her glasses. Then, when he ducks his head in faux exasperation, she smirks, “All mothers got eyes in the back of their head. Have you actually consumed anything other than liquid heart disease today?”
“I had a salad earlier,” he responds loosely, drumming his fingers against the countertop and scanning the board.
She hums non-committally, continuing to type away at her computer. He pretends to ignore the way her eyes flick over his body in a scan. “You better not be cherry-picking over there, either.”
“Oh, I would never. But,” Frank stretches the word long enough for Dana to send a short glare, staring at the board, “Would you rather wanna treat a toddler who bit his own arm too hard or a hemothorax from a hit-and-run?”
“What I would like is for you to get a move on and go save some lives, Langdon.”
Since being stationed at PTMC, if not Collins or Garcia, Frank could always count on Dana to whip him into shape. She was no-nonsense in a way that he found to be comforting, a steady figure that he would follow into battle if he had to. Besides, it was his God given right as her- verbatim- ‘kid she never wanted’ to annoy the crap out of her whenever he could.
Now, bitterness boils under Frank’s skin that he knows has no right to be there. It was no fault but his own that no one reached out during the tenth months and every lie he told and every crime he committed cemented that truth. Still, it never stopped him from waiting everyday for one of the nurses at the center to stop by his room to tell him he’s got a phone call.
“Robby’s out in the ambulance bay, if you were wondering,” Dana says; her voice betrays the laxness she puts on her face. Her tone is edging on the side of caution, treating him like a child with a torn relationship to his father, which makes him angry because Dana was never one to hold back.
“I wasn’t,” he huffs, reaching for a spare tablet from the cart. He thumbs through the chart notes of the hemo in Central Seven, but the words don’t make much sense in his brain right now.
Robby must’ve handed off the fall case to Mel, considering she’s still in Trauma Two, which makes him wonder really how much everything's changed. But, Frank’s not really in the mood to find out, and would sooner chop off his own foot than spark another conversation with Robby in the ambulance bay of all places.
“Langdon-”
Dana is stopped short from continuing as Emma and Joy walk up to the charge desk from his left. Emma’s face is drawn and Joy’s gown is plastered in quickly drawing blood. They needn’t utter a word before Dana sighs, brushing her knuckles roughly against her eye. Frank looks back at the board just in time to see the patient logged in Central One wiped off the screen.
Swallowing hard, Frank hates himself just a little more. He should have gone to help.
He should have stopped fucking thinking only about himself. He knows he's being unrealistic; if the patient died in less than three minutes of arrival, there was nothing he could've done. Either way, it's no comfort, and it does nothing to stop the bile swirling in his stomach.
Dana comes around the corner, sending Joy and Emma off with a promise to be there in a moment, and speaks low to Frank. "Just steer clear of him for the rest of shift, okay, Frank? He's having a pretty rough day."
Yeah, Frank imagines, that feeling's been going around.
He nods to her, the expression probably resembling a grimace than anything else because she only frowns deeper. (He's been on the receiving end of a lot of those today.) Her hand rises an inch, maybe to grasp his shoulder in a comforting embrace, but eventually falls back to her side.
"Dana," Al-Hashimi calls out from across the floor.
From what he could see of Central One from his position, EVS had already set out to mop up the copious amounts of blood off the floor. Which meant Dana has to clean the body for viewing- or the morgue. He doesn't envy her either.
Alone once again, Frank returns to his charts, not even a quarter of the way finished. If he was lucky, he would only have to stay an hour past shift change, and if he was blessed by God, Robby would be long gone by then. Any thoughts of trying again to apologize were long gone; he'd be sky-high if he could even manage to escape this building without another fight.
Forty-one-year-old woman presented with superficial laceration in left temporal region and left orbital blowout fracture-
Frank hunches in his chair, using the table as support for his forearms. His hands curl into fists above the keyboard every few moments when a short wave cracks up his spine.
-Brief LOC on outdoor porch, minor ache in right radio-carpal joint, no bony-tenderness, no fracture from x-ray scan, CT clear, minor bruising along thumb, splint added for immobilization.
His shoes don’t flex well from dried blood that he dreads cleaning. Taps his toes against the floor in a beating drum, thump-thump-thump, thump, thump-thump-thump, thump, thump-thu-
A clatter of supplies skid across the floor to his right, leaving a flushed Princess and a barely righted cart that managed to clip the edge of the nurses station. Frank almost makes the journey to get out of his chair and help, but Santos and Whitaker are at her aid before he could even try. Although, the former does so almost begrudgingly and the latter kept tripping over his feet on his way over. Littered along a two foot radius, the shine of the metal forceps and clamps glimmer in the light from inside their packages.
But it’s the sight of the scalpels barely ten feet away that catch his attention. They sit like treasure amongst trash, enticing in the way it pretends to sit innocently. Sirens drawing in pliant pirates to their death.
Franks’s mouth feels like its watering and a tingling sensation brightens at the tips of his fingers. He can’t quite place the familiarity.
The mess is cleared up before he catches himself, eyebrows ruffling at the sudden increase in his heartrate, the flutters in his stomach-
He doesn’t entertain his suicidal thoughts any more than a normal man would, and- Yes, Arthur, would you like me to describe it in meticulous detail or should you just send me straight to the closest psycho ward?- sure he’s come dangerously close to do doing some dumb stuff, but he’s fine, he’s-
Arthur had merely peeked at the swollen red flesh around his thumb and scribbled in his notebook.
And, yeah maybe for the next three visits to his office, Frank had been mildly worried orderlies would bust down the door and strap him in a straightjacket- but, hey, he was cleared for work!
But why does he feel this way now? Why, today of all days, was he itching for it? Why was he so-
The drugs.
The fucking crux of his life.
Frank leaps out of seat, his stomach curling, as he bolts for the staff bathroom, barely leaving any room to think things over. He steps round Santos and Whitaker, unknowingly kicking one of the scalpel packages and sending it skidding to bump against Santos’ leg, dodges three incoming gurneys, and two patients trying to catch his arm as he speeds past them.
You’re too impulsive, Frankie- his mother would say, bending down to ruffle his hair and wipe at the scrapped skin of his knee. When are you going to learn your lesson?
Locking the door without looking, the bathroom thankfully empty, he stumbles to the first stall he can reach and lands roughly on his knees. His bones pop against the tile and everything is so hot that his scrubs cling to his skin, like the dial had reached farther than it should. His fingers are down his throat before he can blink, and he gags until his eyes sting. His first attempt is underwhelmingly useless, only bile splattering out- an unnatural yellow hue to it (probably from the Red Bull)- that has Frank scrunching his nose in disgust. He sticks his fingers down further, a knuckle skimming past the torn wound in his cheek, and follows the next gag into vomiting further. Hair plastered to his forehead and stomach contracting painfully with forced heaves, Frank braces his hands against his thighs and peers past the bile.
Sitting amongst the mess are two white pills that blur in his vision from the tears in his eyes. His hand shoots blindly for the toilet paper, furiously scrubbing at his eyes. Mouth carrying that awful taste and hearing slight ringing, Frank hangs his head, using his arms as pillars to hold him up.
Muffled by the bathroom door, the ED carries on, and Frank sits and cries.
Only one thought rummages through his mind: his mother would be so disappointed.
A door slams shut.
In the hall, throat tingly and cheeks flushed, Frank exits out into central gingerly. Trinity Santos is on a warpath, practically stomping her feet in loud thuds to get away, and checks Frank’s shoulder when his step falters in her path. The momentum rocks the unsteadiness in his limbs and he grasps the edge of a gurney stationed against the wall to keep balance.
On the other side of the patient door, he hears a man yell: “This place is fucking insane!”
He barely catches the spat of words under Santos’ breath as she turns around the corner. “Fucking tell me about it, asshole.”
“Langdon!”
A harsh hand shoves against his shoulder, almost sending him tumbling to the ground if his feet weren’t the weight of cement blocks.
“Langdon, I swear to God.”
The same voice whispers sharply in his vicinity, not loud enough to attract the others in the room, but enough for it to sound the alarms in his head. Piercing, flooding in his ears that makes his body flush with dizzying heat. Frank can’t move. He’s trying. Please believe he’s trying.
Please move, his brain screaming signals to his limbs. Get it together. You are a fucking doctor for God’s sake. Prove that you haven’t slipped past the deep end. Prove that you’re still hanging on by the tips of your bleeding fingers.
“Doctor Langdon,” Robby growls in his ear. “Bag him.”
Frank is at the head of the gurney in an instant, taking the valve mask from Jesse and adjusting it over the patient's face before manually pumping. He watches the monitor like a hawk, eyes glued to the oxygen levels.
“Princess?” Robby suddenly barks when the woman rushes back into the trauma room. “Tox screen come back?”
For a split second, as Franky’s eyes glide away from the monitor, he catches Princess’ eyes already on him. Then, they flicker away in urgency, as though startled at being caught and landed on Robby, giving one curt nod.
“Postive for oxycodone.”
To say that Fate loathes him is an understatement, but Frank is too tattered to think of a stronger synonym.
The night was finally teetering off, and while no one dared to say it was borderline quiet, everything was in a lull. True to her word, Mel had come back for him. Frank had stuck by her side for what he had hoped at the time was the rest of the shift, trailing after her like a third-year med-student and letting her take the lead. Maybe a year ago or if it was any other R4, he would’ve found it demeaning, but he’d taken the help in stride.
Time had gone on as it should, for a while. Calm, yet fast-paced in a way that didn’t let Frank drag his feet and kept his mind on task. Handoffs were soon and the night shift had begun trickling in. With most of the residents and med-students stationed at the computers trying to climb the never-ending mountain that was charting, and even Robby and Al-Hashimi scrounging for work in minor injuries, Frank finally felt alright. He would have liked some zofran, but other than that… he’s- fine.
He was fine, that is, until a trauma was dumped at their doorstep. Whitaker was the one to stop at his desk, out of breath and thumb hooked behind him, tugging Frank out of his seat before a single noise could slip past his mouth. Holding tight to his stethoscope, he had jogged to Trauma One, swerving past the melee of doctors and nurses to stop right next to the gurney. His eyes, trained and alert, ran over the unconscious man. Mid-thirties, short and dark brown hair, dressed in a white dress shirt that Jesse was cutting off. An oxygen mask was placed over the man’s mouth, leads sticking to his bare chest as Whitaker stuck in an IV.
The words of the EMTs had rattled around the room, listing off numbers that sent the rest into motion.
“Name’s Barry Wes-”
Robby had leaned over the man, listening to the short of breath, for any notes of whistling or unevenness in the chest.
“-GCS six on scene. Brachycardic at forty-two, hypo with BP at fifty-six-over-thirty-eight. Temperature at ninety-four-point-three-”
Frank had palpated any area he could reach for any sign of trauma when he slowed, noticing the clammy skin and the darkened lips and fingers.
“Found in his hotel bathroom by his wife, unconscious and shallow breathing, called us. We administered one shot of narcan, no response; the wife thinks it was an overdose.”
‘Hell of a first day’ was the first thought that flickered through his head. The second was ‘How fitting.’
His breath held for a heartbeat, blinking harshly as he tried to push down the feeling that Robby somehow knew. It's unrealistic, and Frank hates that he's assuming the absolute worst, but shame clings to every cell in his body. Abby would perhaps say that he was narcissistic in the way he thinks everyone's laughing behind his back, pointing fingers.
Doctor Langdon isn't much of a doctor if he can't handle a simple overdose, is he?
Please, he couldn't even handle simple back pain.
Good fucking riddance.
“You ran a comprehensive opioid test?” The words leave his mouth between squeezes of the bag, Robby turning to meet his eyes.
“Twelve-panel,” Princess answers as she fully enters, finding a spot on the other side of Robby, prepping an intubation tray.
“The wife mentioned he was on meds but his chart wasn’t in our system. He’s from Missouri; they’re here for a wedding,” Whitaker mentions, lifting the man's eyelids one at a time and flicking a light over them. “Pin-point pupils.”
“Oxygen’s at thirty-five,” Jesse warns.
“Let's get warm saline going, one liter wide open.”
“Second dose of naloxone?” Someone asks.
“Langdon, you’re on intubation,” Robby demands, watching him by the foot of the bed. “Ketamine and rocuronium.”
Whitaker calls from the computer pushed to the corner, “Ordering a CMP, CBC, urinalysis-”
Frank tugs the tray closer to him, exchanging the bag valve mask for a glidescope from Jesse. Prying Barry’s mouth open with two fingers from his right hand, he pushes the scope past the tongue and lifts until he catches sight of the chords through the camera. There’s only a few spasms that jolt the endotracheal tube as he passes through, but it’s seamless and routine. Jesse tapes down the tube as he nods at the procedure, but Frank’s eyes are already on Robby. He sees nothing.
“End-tidal is good,” Whitaker acknowledges, nodding at him.
“De-fib pads, Princess,” Robby says instead.
“On it.”
She skirts around Frank, sticking the pads to Barry’s bare chest. Memories flicker through Frank’s mind, and instead of Princess, it’s Perlah, and instead of Barry, it's Louie.
“Oxygen’s at forty-eight. He’s not improving by much,” Jesse says, pushing more warm saline and placing heat pads along the body.
“Can we, um, get the wife in here? Maybe she knows how much he took,” Whitaker suggests, feeling the clammy skin through his glove.
“She’s in the family room with Dana, I can go grab her,” Princess says, waiting for Robby’s approval.
But, for once, Robby’s attention is on Frank.
“Doctor Langdon, plan?”
All focus slides to Frank, who blinks once, thankful he’s not hooked to an EKG too because the shrill spike of his heart-rate would be deafening. But, he is a doctor above all else.
“Push another naloxone, and up the vent oxygen to a hundred-percent, he’s going to start seizing if oxygen doesn't get to his brain.”
Princess rushes out to find Barry’s wife while Jesse fulfills the orders. Whitaker and Robby are glued to the monitor, but Frank focuses on the necklace laced around Barry’s neck and resting lopsidedly on his chest. It’s a thin band, almost invisibly so, with an even thinner charm, shaped in the letter ‘I’. Around five years ago, on their first dating anniversary, Abby had gifted him one with the letter ‘A’. He never admitted that he hated the feeling of the metal on his bare skin, but he hadn’t had to wear it long anyway. In his first year of residency, it had gotten caught around the length of his stethoscope, falling to the ground imperceptibly when he went to yank it off during a rib fracture trauma. He tries to imagine Barry’ and I’s story going better.
“V-fib,” Frank says hauntedly, his eyes snapping to the monitor just in time to see the irregularity. “Charge the paddles to two-hundred!”
Deja-vu bites at his ankles, keeping pace with his desperate run.
The charge and clear happen vaguely, once and then twice. It’s not until the word “Asystole” slips past his lips does Frank shove Whitaker to the side just as Jesse and Robby lower the bed, and interlace his fingers. He locks his elbows next and keeps his knees bent, pressing his hands against Barry's sternum. Rocking back and forth, Frank pushes and releases, quick breaths and quick movements.
“Check the pupils,” Frank orders through his teeth.
A moment slithers past slowly until Whitaker's voice filters through the air. “Unresponsive to light. ”
“Fuck, okay, push zero-point-one of epi.”
‘Another One Bites The Dust’ morbidly sings through his head as he counts over and over. One more cursory look shows Barry’s blue nails and purple lips. His skin grows colder under Frank’s touch. He can’t lose another patient. Not now, not when it's-
Robby cuts through. “Hold compressions.”
“No change,” Whitaker notes, voice hitched. The edges of him are frayed, nervously ticking by Frank’s side.
“Temp’s eighty-nine-point-seven.”
He continues compressions again with more vigor, not hesitating when the crackling ribs echo in the room. Frank forcibly switches songs in his head, the jangle of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ catching on instead. It was Tanner’s favorite when he was six months old, smiling wide when Abby’d put him in the swing and sing softly. It’s not on the list of Frank’s favorite nursery rhymes, but for now, it’ll do.
Sweat tickles at his nape despite the ED’s own chilled temperature and the skin of his knuckles prickled white.
“Nothing in carotid.”
“Neither in radial.”
-Merrily, Merrily, Merrily- He hopes Barry doesn’t have any children. He doesn’t want to be responsible for another child losing their father. Princess still hasn’t returned, Frank notices, which means the wife was already in shambles. She may already be pressed against the glass of Trauma Two if Frank spared to look, red-rimmed and cursing him out for not being able to save her husband- Life is but a dream.
“Rhythm check,” Frank announces before he steps off. He can’t afford to look at the monitor, even the body in his front view swam like molasses.
“Asystole. Three-and-a-half minutes since last epi,” Jesse comments shortly.
Fuck, please.
“Push another,” Frank begs.
Another ditched effort, he hums the tune of ‘Espresso’ under his breath, a song sorely stuck in his brain from when Tanner discovered YouTube, which meant Penny had too, and since then held an affinity for upbeat pop-songs.
With wide eyes, Whitaker steps around the gurney to the other side, ducking his head an inch to catch Frank’s. “Do you wanna switch?”
His demeanor is a far-off cry from the day with Mr. Milton, when the fourth-year-med-student never had someone die on him before. His composure is somehow held tighter together than Frank’s is, stiff chain compared to thinning twine.
Frank shakes his head, bemoaning inwardly when his vision swims darker. His back is so sore, pulsing angrily over the strain.
There is a soul underneath him, shrouded in death. It’s been over ten months since the last time he’s performed CPR, but the ministrations are always awfully familiar. The crackling under the sternum is louder until that’s all he hears, the steady beep of the monitor finally sinking below.
“Holding.”
A bleak pause. “Asystole.”
Come on.
The skin is peppering with faint bruises where the heel of his palm continues to dig in. The back of his scrubs cling to him. Songs flicker through his head on a record. Robby watches.
“Doctor Langdon-”
-The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me-
“Another epi!”
The creak of the gurney is too loud.
“Eigthy-five-point-two temp.”
-Some’ll win, some will loose, some are born to sing the blues-
“Holding,” he says quickly.
“Asystole,” they respond quickly.
-But you were everything to me, I was begging you ‘please don’t go,’ and I said-
“The wife is watching, Doctor Langdon-”
His head pounds.
-Well, some nights, I wish that this all would end, cause I-
“Frank.”
A light finger grazes the bare skin of his arm. He traces it slowly to Robby’s face, and there’s that old weary look again.
His voice is kind. “That’s enough.”
Frank swallows hard. He releases his locked elbows, taking a step back on wobbly knees as Jesse reaches up to the button on the side of the monitor, quieting the noise. His ears don’t relax or clear, instead his shoulders hike up as Robby slides away and Whitaker avoids his gaze.
“Time of death,” Jesse begins after, looking down at his watch, “nighteen-o-three.”
Hanging his head, Frank raises his arm to swipe at the sweat lacing his forehead, staring at his shoes. In his periphery, he can see Robby’s, the point of his toes facing him instead of the gurney.
“Thank you, everyone,” Robby says eventually.
Whitaker’s hands grasp the railing of the gurney, staring at the rumpled sheets and the pale, dead body above. “Can we, uh, hold a moment of silence?”
They’re waiting for his answer, Frank realizes, when a few moments pass. He hates the limelight, his blood running cold as he tries speaking past the boulder shoved in his esophagus. “Yeah, yeah,” his voice crackles.
He takes that second as everyone shifts, hands laced in front of them and heads lowered, to lean against the far wall, forcing his eyes to lose focus. The blur of the world and the blankness of his mind barely slices through the churning in his stomach, but it does help.
The cries of the wife pierce through the glass, unable to string together the strength to be with her husband.
When it’s all over, Frank snakes his phone out of his pocket, pulling up the last number he messaged.
‘Please. Can I talk to the kids?’
He shakily sends off the text just before Jesse ushers him out of the room, who had finished covering the body. The nurse turns off the lights, casting everything into dimness. And as Frank stares at the white sheet from behind the glass windows, he counts.
Four-hundred-seventy-two.