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Mel is not herself today.
Not that she’s been much herself lately if Frank’s honest. Last week, Robby told them that they were going to be on the night shifts — thanks to the fact that Abbot is now decidedly his best friend’s boyfriend, they at least change their shifts together so they can commute together — for a week. Apparently, two months of nightshifts is a requirement of his med ed fellowship and two weeks of night shifts is also required for Mel’s R4 credentials. That meant that they couldn’t properly see Becca for a week so Frank figured that’s what had put his wife on edge.
But today — tonight — she is decidedly not herself.
It started in the morning when they came home after a relatively q-word shift that mostly consisted of them dozing off in the residents’ lounge and then behind central when Abbot kept glaring at them that they were ‘slacking’ (Frank made a mental note to nag at Samira about her obsessive little boyfriend). She was zoned out all morning, distractedly humming under her breath, fidgety even when Frank pulled her into their bed to get a couple hours of sleep before heading back in for another night shift — and hopefully their last one for a long time.
Then, when she woke up, she failed to braid her hair three times, eventually tossing the hairclip aside irritatedly until Frank had to practically sit her down and braid her hair before it overstimulated her so much she burst into tears. She skipped the half-assed, meal-prepped chicken salad Frank had made for them, claiming that it smelled horrible (yes, his ego did take a hit, rip) and so Frank had to make her a pb&j sandwich that now sits in the her locker, untouched because she doesn’t have an appetite.
Suffice to say, Frank wants her examined.
“I’m just saying,” he leans on central, talking to Ellis, “maybe she’ll take it better if it comes from you. Just get a blood sample for some labs. Tell her it’s department mandated, Ellis. C’mon — help me out here.”
“Trouble in paradise, kid?” Lena asks, looking up from the chart she’s holding.
“Did Dana put you up to ask me that?”
She clicks her tongue. “That’s for me to know and for you to dot, dot, dot.”
“Christ,” he curses under his breath, turning his attention back on Ellis who is decidedly not listening to him, instead looking up at the board. “Come on, Dr. Ellis. I’ll cover a double for you.”
“Why don’t you just tell her?” she huffs out her breath, crossing her arms. “I’m taking South 3.”
“Am I talking to a wall?” Frank scoffs, following as Ellis walks across the floor to take the headache patient — which, boring, by the way — and continues, “Look, she’s been irritated all week and I don’t know if it’s just not seeing her sister that’s getting to her or if there’s some deeper shit going on that I don’t know about or maybe she’s sick. But whatever it is, she’s not talking to me and she likes you — she respects you — so can you please—”
“Langdon,” she stops in her tracks before entering the room. “I don’t know how y’all roll in day shift, but at night, we keep our shit to ourselves. And Mel’s been a perfectly good doctor all week. Your personal life shit is none of my business.”
Frank opens his mouth, then shuts it.
That — annoyingly — is a fair point.
Ellis watches him for half a second longer, something softer flickering behind the boundary she just drew. “If she’s symptomatic,” she adds, lower, “she’ll say so. Or she won’t. Either way, she’s an R4. She knows how to order her own damn labs.”
And then she’s gone into South 3.
Frank goes back to central like he has, in fact, been talking to a wall. He might as well. “Christ alive, Langdon, look alive,” Lena snarks and Frank nearly snarls at her before remembering that it’s never a good idea to get on the wrong side of the charge nurse and instead swallows down his pride, looking up at the board. He can’t read the words — fever melts into chest pain into laceration, into everything else. He blinks, looking away and instantly, like a moth to a flame, his eyes lock on Mel.
She’s at the far computer, posture too straight, shoulders drawn up near her ears. She’s staring at the screen like it personally offended her. Her braid — his braid — sits neat down her back, and she’s chewing on the inside of her cheek the way she does when she’s overstimulated or trying not to cry or trying not to stab someone with a 14-gauge.
She looks… pale.
He tells himself that’s just fluorescent lighting.
“Langdon,” Abbot calls from trauma two, sharp and sanctimonious as ever. “If you’re done socializing.”
He is very tempted to flip him off and go on ogling his wife. But Mel seems to notice his gaze just as she looks up. For a second, he thinks she might approach him, might tell him that something is wrong and so he’ll be able to fix it and all would be well. But then she flushes, looks aways and calls after Shen so he figures all hope is lost.
“Langdon!” Abbot snaps again.
“Coming!” he calls back, irritated, pushing his nails into the palm of his hand. “Fucking coming,” he mutters, following Abbot into trauma two to save some dumbass who should’ve known better than to get on a bike without a helmet after two in the morning. But hey, idiots live amongst them, right?
—
“Where is Mel?”
“If I had a nickle for every time you asked that question,” Shen mumbles under his breath, taking a sip of his coffee — Frank tasted it once, it tasted like bitter piss. Not that he knows how piss tastes like. He just thinks that would be it — as he puts his signature on a form.
“Well, I’ll give you one if you tell me where she is,” he clicks his tongue, bouncing out of his place.
“It’s a quie—”
“Actually, shut the fuck up,” he interrupts before Shen finished the word and he has to rush to yet another trauma before catching his breath. If he wasn’t so amused, Frank’s certain Shen would be offended. (He is, after all, an attending and Frank’s only a fellow. Hierarchy and all, he falls behind. It’s actually generous of him to let this go.)
“Christ, you’re testy tonight, Dr. Langdon,” he yawns, leaning against the counter. “Did you have a fight with her?”
“Why does everyone assume that every time I’m looking for my wife that I have had a fight with her?” he scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Actually, Mel and I rarely fight. It’s one of the charms of our relationship.” It’s not that they don’t fight — they do argue about the proper way of folding things (Mel always wins the argue), they argue about what restaurant they ought to eat at (that argument, Becca wins), they argue about many, many medical topics that usually end with Frank taking a time out and a shower and then come out to apologize to Mel because happy wife, happy life, right? But they never argue in a way that warrants them feeling shitty for so many days.
And Mel hasn’t acted like herself in a long time.
“Maybe because you’re trouble?” Lena chimes in.
“Sure, yeah, let’s get more people involved, why don’t we?” he mumbles under his breath. “Lemme see. What do we have? Nausea? No thank you. Headache? I just took one. Falling? Now, that I can get on board with.” He looks at Shen, “it might actually be a cool brain tumor.”
“I wouldn’t call that cool,” Shen says in a tone that implies, he actually absolutely will call that cool. “But I’ll trade you N3,” — the cool case — “with Dr. King’s location.”
“Jesus, you’re evil,” he hums, knowing which one is more important to him. “Fine, tell me.”
“Roof,” Shen clicks his tongue, taking his iPad. “Abbot showed her the place when she asked him fifteen minutes ago. Said she was feeling pretty green and she needed some air.” Damn him, sitting on that information for all this time, watching Frank lose his mind.
“The case is all yours, Dr. Shen,” he groans. “Cover for me?”
“Don’t count on it,” he calls from Frank’s back as he makes his way to the elevator and he is tempted to flip him off but then again, he is an attending even despite the fact that back when he was an intern he used to be an R2 with whom he had some banter. Alas, it doesn’t matter now — what is Abbot gonna do when he sees him missing? Give him a stern talk? (He still doesn’t like his stern talks. It makes him feel like a thousand bugs are crawling on his skin.)
Don’t suffocate her, he reminds himself over and over again as he watches the floors tick by. Just let her tell you. But ask — Jesus Christ, Frank, just ask. The air is immediately crisp as he steps out in the roof, blinking a few times to get used to the relative darkness there, spotting her silhouette standing near the rim, her shoulders shaking in rapid breaths. “Mel?” he calls out, unable to stop himself. “Baby?”
She immediately jumps at the sound of his voice, her head snapping back to take a look at him. “Frank,” she breathes out his name, her voice small and breaking at the edges, falling apart before the syllables have even completely left her mouth. He takes long steps until he’s close — until she only had to reach out to let him know that he’s ready to melt into her, to support her, to give her whatever she wants to.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asks, trying to catch her eyes, trying to look in the depth of her soul like that will allow him to know what’s wrong.
“Nothing,” she shakes her head, the same answer she’s given to the question every time he’s asked it this past week. “I just needed some air — I felt a little nauseous.”
“You’ve been feeling nauseous a lot, baby,” Frank tries to tread very lightly, carefully tiptoeing toward the maybe-you-should-take-a-complete-blood-panel-test-sweetheart territory. “I mean how long have you been nauseous, sweetheart?”
“Couple days,” she mumbles.
“Couple days,” he repeats faintly. “Mel, I’m really getting fucking worried,” he whispers, taking a step closer and then another. The fact that she doesn’t flinch is a good sign in itself. Lately, she’s been so irritable, so on the edge. Frank figured it was her PMSing — she usually gets more sad than she does angry but it can change up — but he doesn’t think that will last more than a handful of days. “Don’t you think you should, um, take a blood sample? We can send it up, have it expedited. I’m just — I’m really worried.”
“No,” she shakes her head quickly. “There is no need for a blood test, it doesn’t—” her voice breaks, she swallows and then starts again, “There is nothing to be worried about, Frank.”
Fuck, he is getting restless. He’s angry and pent up and run up his patience. He tries to list her symptoms, the very little information that she has given him — nausea, fatigue, irritable, no appetite, heightened sense. It can simply be the exhastion of the night shifts, running them up the mill, all of that mixed with her hormonal shifts around he mens time. It can be—
His brain stalls.
It can be something else entirely.
“Mel…” he whispers, the realization dawning on him. How the fuck has he been so stupid and so blind?
“Yes?” Her voice is small when she replies.
“Baby, when was your last period?”
Her head snaps up towards him and even in the dim light he can see the faint shake of her pupils, dilated and in shock — an air of denial, the sort he’s only seen in her when her mother passed. Like she’s treading uncharted waters, like she’s scared. “Frank…” she breathes out his name and everything in him tells him — begs him, orders him — to fucking hug her. To shield her from the world and tell her that everything will be okay. He has to physically restrain himself — clench his jaw, curl his fingers into a fist, plant his feet firmly to its place.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Frank.”
“Mel.”
She looks like she wants the floor to swallow her whole.
Oh.
Oh.
His heart slams against his ribs. He wonders if she hears the sound of it — wonders if his insides will bruise from the sheer force of his heart beat, ruthless and unyeilding. “No,” he breathes out the word even though he doesn’t know what he’s disagreeing with — the fact that she might be pregnant (fuck, she might be pregnant) or the fact that she’s kept it to herself all this time.
“I don’t know,” she whispers, which is not the same thing.
“Mel.”
“I said I don’t know.” Her voice wobbles now. “I’ve been on nights and we haven’t seen Becca and my cycle’s weird sometimes and I thought it was just stress and I didn’t want to—” Her breath catches. “I don’t know — I just, I haven’t been brave enough to check. Because it’s — I mean, we are so clearly not ready for a baby. I’m still an R4 and you’re a fellow and we are working and there’s Becca and we haven’t really talked about this and—” her voice breaks again as she shakes her head. It’s only then that he realizes that her eyes are filled with unshed tears, glistening in her eyes.
Frank feels like the oxygen has been sucked out of the whole sky. “Sweetheart, you think—”
She laughs, a tiny, hysterical sound, wet and angry and broken and so utterly sad that it almost breaks his heart. “I think I might be pregnant.”
He’s a fucking doctor — he knows; he’s put two and two together by now. Obviously. — but still the words leaving her mouth makes it all the more real. “Oh, sweetheart,” he whispers, this time not asking for permission as he closes the distance between them, pulling her against his chest, allowing her to press her face against his chest. He’s ready to be pushed away — for Mel to tell him that she’s overstiumlated and she needs a breath. But instead, she melts into his touch. She curls her fingers around the fabric of his scrubs, pulling him closer like the distance between them has hurt her just as much as it was hurting him.
God, he was so blind — so bad at reading her! He thought she needed space — needed to deal with the thoughts in her head before coming to him. He should’ve pulled her into him ages ago — should’ve pressed harder. But now he’s here — he’s here and she acts like she wants him to stay and so he will. For as long as she will have him, he’ll stay in her grip, protecting her from the rest of the world.
When she pulls away, her eyes are still full, tears stubbornly making their ways out of the corner of her eyes. He grabs the tears from the corner of her eyes by his thumb before they ever get to roll down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to say anything because what if I’m wrong and then I’m dramatic and we’re on nights and this is the worst possible timing and I have boards and— we have not planned for this— and it’s not like we are at home much so how would that even work with kids around?”
He cups her face gently, “C’mon, baby,” he cooes. “If you’re pregnant,” he says steadily, even though his hands are shaking, “that’s not dramatic. That’s… that’s big.”
Her lower lip trembles. “You’re not mad?”
“Mad?” He lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “Mel, I can never be mad at you. Especially about something like this. We’re married — we’re in our thirties, financially in a good place, I’m a fellow now and by the time the baby comes — shit, sorry, I mean if there is a baby — I’ll have finished the program and applied for an attending job. The hours will be more felxible. And — okay, am I freaking you out? A little bit, right? All I’m trying to say is,” — he catches his breath, taking a step closer so they are pressed against each other, flushed against the cold of the night — “that we will figure this out.”
“Really?” she sounds younger than she is, like the girl he fell in love with more than a decade ago, splashed on the floor of that dorm room, her voice thin because of the pain of the fall.
“Of course,” he whispers.
For a second, he wonders if he really means it.
He tries to find that fear tugging inside of him — the same one that’s reflected in Mel’s eyes. He tries to find the hesitation, the panic, the bile rising in her throat and his stomach violently demanding to be emptied out. All he finds, though, a sense of relief. Relieved that nothing’s actually wrong with Mel, relieved that they are finally talking. He’s missed his wife — so much that it hurt to breathe — and now she’s near and he doesn’t care about much else.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he says, taking a step back in an attempt to blink away the desire to keep her close and not let her go. “I’m going to tell Abbot that we’re going to take half an hour — then we will get a urine sample and send it up for—”
“No,” she shakes her head. “I don’t want anyone in the hospital knowing just yet,” she pouts.
“Okay,” he agrees in a heartbeat. “Then we’ll do it the old fashioned way. I’ll run out, get some tests from the supermarket around the corner and you’ll pee on a stick.” He tries to say it lightly, to make it a joke in the way that he does when she’s procrastinating on doing a thing because it’s too overwhelming. She seems to consider it for a second.
“Can I time you?”
“Would it even be fun if you didn’t?” he grins. For a second, she looks crumpled up — like she’s going to melt and break under the pressure and then cry under the weight of the thing she’s been carrying around by herself for a week. And then, she nods.
“Yes, please,” she hums quietly.
“Go take ten minutes in the residents’ lounge,” he says, “I’ll be back in nine.”
—
He’s back in six minutes and forty-eight seconds. He knows because Mel has been counting and when he opens the door and she presses stop on the time, she smiles. “You won!” she chimes, like she has forgotten about the anxiety of it all momentarily.
“Don’t I always?” he returns the smile, gently shaking the packet of the tests he’s carrying. “Ready?”
All the breeziness of a few seconds ago — the child-like excitement over him beating his predicted time, the wide smile on her face put there by him — disappears and immediately, she looks a bit green. Like she’s on the verge of throwing up, retching until the back of her throat aches.
“Have you hydrated, baby?” he tries to lighten the load, to make it a big joke. If you manage to pee on three sticks, then we win the game. Isn’t that fun, Mel? He cringes inwardly at the attempt. But he doesn’t know what to do — he has no clue how to make this any less nerve-wrecking than it is at the moment. Maybe he shouldn’t even try — maybe they should feel the hours ticking by, the clock slowing down, the stomachs flipping in anxiety and anticipation. He hands her the packet. “There are three there, each from a different brand. Figured it would be more reliable that way.”
She looks at his outstretched hand, her eyes wide and frightened, and for a second, Frank is tempted to throw everything in the trashcan and say, ‘Fuck it. Let’s go home and do it there. We don’t have to know tonight.’ but that’s not what a supportive husband — a smart man — would do. A good man would make them face it right now and plan for it as soon as possible.
So he stands like that until Mel takes a deep breath, gathers her thoughts and accepts the bag. “Wait for me?”
“Always,” he promises as his wife takes the bag, hides it under scrubs — like that’s any less suspicious. The bump under the from on her scrubs where the bag is makes her look like she’s… well, pregnant. Ironic, considering everything. He counts to three until he’s on his feet, bouncing as he practically runs out of the lounge, catching the bathroom door closing behind Mel.
“What the hell was that about?” Ellis asks just as Frank stands gaurd behind the bathroom door. “Is she okay?”
“I think it’s food poisoning,” he says dismissively. “She just needs a sec.”
“You don’t say,” she clicks her tongue.
“Can I help you, Ellis?” he asks when she lingers, not quite taking her leave.
“Is everything alright, man?” she asks, “I mean, you two don’t look like—”
“Everything’s fine,” he interrupts before she can go on. She means well, he knows. She likes Mel, of that he’s certain. She’s looked out for the both of them more often than not — in her own stern, asshole-y way, she’s been on their side. But right now, he wishes it were just the two of them. He wishes that his colleagues would just ignore them and give them this moment in solitude so they could work this out themselves. “Sorry, I’m just worried about her.”
“Nah, I get it,” she nods. At least Ellis doesn’t look offended. “Holler if you need anything.”
“Will do,” he promises. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem,” she says, already walking away, tipping her imaginary hat with her back to him. She’s cool. The first time he met Parker — on orientation party night, before they started their intern year; him, Collins, Ellis, Garcia and a bunch of others who went into less… medical specialties — he was so awe-struck that it was a little embarassing. She had short hair back then, braided tightly against her scalp, unimpressed eyes and a crooked smirk and tattoos. He actually came home and called Mel that night, singing the praises of the cool intern. She has tattoos, Frank had said, sorely disappointed that he had never been able to grow a pair and get one himself. He is just pretty sure that he can’t commit to something on his body for the rest of his life.
Which is beside the point.
God, he’s good at distracting himself. So good that for a second, he forgets why he was standing there like that before Mel opens the bathroom door, holding the packet in her hands. “We have to wait three minutes. I started the timer.” To which he nods, takes the packet from her, and guides them both back to the lounge. He’s pretty sure everyone is suspicious already but that is more exacerbated by the fact that he sees Lena eyeing them, her glasses sliding down her nose.
He’ll take care of that later — just as he decides whether or not they should make an OBGYN appointment to go to before they drive home together the next morning.
“One minute and twenty seconds,” Mel announces just as he closes the door behind them, both of them sitting on the floor just as they did at Mel’s first shift at PTMC. Mel doesn’t even remark that it’s going to hurt his back if he does that — he doesn’t give a shit about his back right now. He just reaches out, tangling their fingers together in a tight lock. “One minute,” she says.
The last minute stretches into hours — they both stare at the timer on Mel’s phone, waiting for the alarm to go off, surprised that it doesn’t. It feels the same way it does when they are staring at a vital signs’ monitor, waiting to see if the rhythm is a-systole or V-fib. Except that then, there are no stakes in it for them. Right now, everything is hanging in balance.
“What would you want it to be?” Mel asks just as the clock ticks past the thirty second mark, looking at him. He blinks. Once, twice. Then, he locks eyes with her.
“What?”
The alarm goes off but neither of them reach for the boxes.
“What would you want it to be? Positive or negative?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want, Mel,” he tries to start but she shakes her head.
“I know,” she nods, “My body, my choice. You support me in all of that. We can do whatever we want,” she rattles off everything that was on the tip of his tongue and for a second, he loves her so much that he can combust in this moment. “And I love you for belieiving all of that. But if it could be anything — and it would be a guarantee that what you wanted was exactly what I wanted, then what would you want it to be?”
There is no need for all this hypotheticals, a part of him thinks bitterly — impatiently — because right now, they can just look at the tests and know. He glances at the clock, half of their half-hour break has already ticked off and it won’t be long before Abbot loses his shit — and his ‘my best friend is your girlfriend so cut us some slack’ card expires — and he comes busting in, demanding that his senior doctors return to their positions but he knows this is important to her. If it weren’t, she wouldn’t look so damn solemn.
He thinks about her question.
What does he want?
You, he thinks, the same answer that springs to his mind every time she asks that question. He’s only ever wanted her — ever since he first saw her, he’s always just wanted Mel King to look at him just as she does every day of their life — like he’s worth something, like she sees him. But he has her — and now there is a world of opportunity lying at their feet. He thinks about residencies, fellowships, their career. He thinks of every goal they set together at the start of their adulthood and how they’ve achieved the majority of it already.
He thinks about small feet moving, the sounds of a toddler’s cries, the little dishes in sink that they are too exhausted to wash but that Mel insists on auto-claving because it should be sanitary, Frank. He can even hear her before the words have ever left her mouth. He thinks of someone — a baby — that has Mel’s golden locks of hair and his blue eyes. Or maybe vice versa — they will be a fierce brunette with the most beautiful brown eyes he’s ever seen in his life. Or, he hopes, they will be the exact carbon copy of their mother — bright and hopeful and so beautiful they put the sun to shame.
He thinks about the fact that all his ties will be stained, grabby hands that are somehow always dirty latching onto them every time he wears a tie. He thinks about his greasy unwashed hair staring back at him in the mirror that tells him that he hasn’t washed his hair in he doesn’t know how long and dark bags under both of their eyes because they haven’t been able to sleep through the night. He thinks of diapers and trashcans and the fact that Becca will be miserable because crying ticks her off and she’ll demand to spend overnights at the center so she can just sleep. (He also thinks about how he will get her even better noise-cancelling headphones so they’ll be all set.)
And eventually, when all else has failed — when the pros and cons list in his head comes to an even toss — he thinks about the curtains in their living room, half drawn so the rays of light can make their way in, just barely, the exhausted light of late afternoon dancing on Mel’s face, her eyes closed as a small body curls up against her chest, pressing into her, drooling on her shirt. The image stays behind his eyelids, unblinking, beautiful, ethereal.
“If I could make a decision,” he says, “and it’s just me and it’s — Mel, you know that I want what you want,” — he keeps intense eye contact with her, trying to puncture the words in, trying to push them into her skull — “but if I had any say in it, I would… I wouldn’t mind have a mini-you. Or a mini-us. Someone who is the perfect mix of me and you — but especially you.” He can’t help the smile that slips onto his face, big and uncontorable. “I know it would be a lot — and we’d probably be really tired and cranky and you will think that my breathing is too loud and probably even make me sleep on the couch in the living room and you would hate my cooking so I would have to try new recipes and use even less seasonings but… but I don’t think it would be half-bad.”
Her eyes are filled, a light layer of tears covering their brown glow, biting her lower lip as she stares at him, her chin wobbling. “Fuck, baby — sweetheart. Are you— shit, did I say? Is that not what you—”
“No, I want that, too,” she rushes to push the words out. “I mean, at first, I thought that I didn’t. That it would be too scary — I mean, I’m still a resident and I have the boards exam, and I might want to think of some fellowships — Samira said I would be good for a pedes fellow or even intensive care fellow. I haven’t decided just yet — and it was will be so… hard,” — her voice breaks a little bit, just allowing her to catch a little bit of her breath, before continuing — “but — but you would be such a great dad, Frank.”
“You would be a great mom.”
The words linger between them, enveloping them with the kindness of a mother pressing an infant into her chest.
She laughs, wet and slippery. “Now I’m worried it will be negative.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart,” he rushes, his thumbs pressed under her eyelids, brushing away the tears. “Whatever the result is, we will have a conversation about it and then — we’ll figure it out. We always do, right?”
“Right,” she nods. “Okay, I think we should watch.”
One. Two. Three.
“Oh,” is the only word that comes out of Mel’s mouth when they turn the tests, all three of them at the same time, all of them showing the same answer. The same fate.
“Oh,” she repeats.
“Mel—”
“Just what the hell do you think you two are doing?” a third voice interrupts before Frank can go on, the door opening so violently that it almost rips off its hinges to show Lena red-faced in the frame. “Car versus car coming in. ETA 2 minutes. I need my senior doctors on the floor. I mean if you two lovebirds are done coddling.” And the way she says it doesn’t sound very nice.
Frank is at least grateful that she’s preoccupied enough that she doesn’t notice the tests on the floor, nor does she see the look on Mel’s face. “Coming right away,” Mel says before Frank can snap at her and tell her to give them a minute, already pushing herself off the floor and in the process, detangling their fingers until Frank’s hand is left cold and empty. Lena nods, leaving the door half-open as she disappears.
“Mel—”
“Later,” she says firmly, interrupting him, already walking to the door. “We’ll talk at home.”
Frank doesn’t get to say much else because before words can form in his head — something like, but we should say something about it, right? Mel, come on, talk to me — she’s gone, leaving the door in the same stare Lena had. His back protests at him as he gathers the tests, putting them in the same plastic that he bought them in less than half an hour ago, and pushes himself to stand up.
Later.
Okay, he can do later. He can open fucking airways and save lives and cut people open. How hard can ‘later’ be?
—
Apparently, ‘later’ doesn’t come even as they get into the car around seven in the morning, both of them practically dead on their feet. ‘Later’ doesn’t come as Frank clears his throat and Mel shakes her head, looking pained so he just decides that shutting up might be the best course of action. ‘Later’ doesn’t even come as he pushes his key into the lock and turns to reveal their cozy apartment that looks so still. So unnaturally tidy. When did they even wash all their dishes?
“I’m going to take a shower,” Mel says and it’s not unusual, not really. This is their routine — they come home off a night shift, Mel takes a shower first and Frank follows second, then they make peppermint tea — because Mel wants him to have some healthy beverages to wash away the Red Bulls he downs during their shift — to calm down and they fall into bed and sleep until some time around four in the evening.
But as the words leave Mel’s throat, it feels anything but usual.
“Mel—” he starts but she’s disappeared into the bathroom before he can even get the full syllable out. Fuck, he thinks bitterly as he throws himself on their couch, knowing full well that neither of the King sisters would approve of him sitting there with his ‘gross’ scrubs still on. He finds that right now, he doesn’t care.
He feels a sting of anger rising in his chest, bitter and burning like bile.
He isn’t sure how long he sits on that couch, stewing in the rage curling around his chest — he doesn’t know why he feels so agitated, so trapped in his own skin. He looks at his hands and strangely, he wonders if they belong to him. He looks at his skin, stretched too tightly on his skin and his feels the agitation grow, a sort of pain that he can’t quite explain, discomfort spreading around him until his skin pricks with it.
Why the fuck are you like this? He wants to snap at himself, Because I want her to talk to me. Because I don’t know who I am if I’m not Mel’s husband, confidant, the one person who knows her every thought. And she hasn’t spoken to me in three hours and it’s fucking killing me because I can’t read her mind. Not when she’s like this.
Fucking pathetic.
He sits there, stares at the ceiling and picks at his hair, listening to the sound of water running in the background, wondering if time stretches differently when you are mad. It’s not until the water stops running and the door to the bathroom closes on the other side of the house does he look away from that spot on the wall that his eyes are trying to drill a hole in.
“Frank?” Mel’s voice comes from the living room entrance, small and broken and his head snaps back to see her standing in her robe, her hair wet, two spots soaked on her shoulders. Her lower chin is wobbling slightly, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Shit, what’s wrong, baby?” he asks.
“I got my period,” she says and her voice breaks on the last word, her face crumpling up the way it does every time she is on the verge of crying, no longer able to hold back the tears — ever since they saw that negative on all three tests staring back at them, the stubborn second line never appearing, Frank has been bracing for a moment like this. He was sure it was going to come in the car, where she was quiet and curled into herself, her toes tucked under her thighs. He was certain it was going to come the moment they passed the threshold to their house. He was certain it was going to come as she peeled off her clothes but it never did and he thought that maybe he was alone in the tiniest force of desperation and sorrow that tugged inside of him at the sight of that empty place where the second line had to be.
But right now, her whole face breaks, splotches of angry red appearing and then spreading until they have all connected, until she looks like it hurts to breathe, like getting the tears out is the most effortful task she’s done in her life and Frank doesn’t know how he gets up so quickly — how he crosses the living room in two long strides — and wraps his arms around her just as her knees gives out and he’s forced to hold her weight up.
The sound ripping itself from the back of her throat is an inhumane, foreign thing. “I’m sorry,” she keeps muttering between violent sobs wreaking her whole body as she hides her head in his chest, her fingers coiled tightly around his scrubs. She smells like coconut, like fresh salt water of the ocean, like everything good rolled into one. What the hell are you sorry for? He wants to ask but the words fail him.
“I’m so sorry,” she keeps repeating as Frank hooks his arms around the back of her knees, lifting her up and walking to the couch, slowly putting her down until she’s curled up against him, crawling into his lap. He runs his fingers through her blond strands of hair, slowly messaging her scalp, shushing her with his lips pressed to her temples. He allows her to cry out the greif — can it even be called that? What the fuck is this feeling named? — the coiled up strands of emotions inside of her chest. She cries until she doesn’t — until she grows exhasuted and sits limb against him. “I’m sorry,” she keeps whispering throughout all of this.
It’s only when she’s calmed down enough that he pushes back a little — just enough so he can look at her face, tear-stained and puffy — and runs his index finger carefully across her forehead, pushing the strands that have stuck to her sweaty forehead back gently. “What the hell are you sorry for, baby?” he asks softly.
“I know you wanted it—” her voice breaks, “I mean, we wanted it. Right? We wanted it. In that moment. And I— I shouldn’t have told you. It was disappointing and I’m sorry that—”
“Shush,” he cooes softly, shaking his head, his palms moving to cup her cheeks, his thumb running softly across her skin, trying to imprint all that he’s feeling in that moment into her skin — love. He’s feeling love above all. “I love you, Melissa King, you know that, right?”
She nods, the knot in her throat only growing bigger. “I love you, too,” she says, her voice laced with the remainder of her emotions. “It’s probably PMS and the hormones. I don’t know why I’m acting like this — this makes no sense. It’s not like we were trying. I mean — I have an IUD and we’ve been careful, so I should’ve know but—” her voice breaks again, shaking her head, “I just got really excited at the prospect for a second there, you know.”
He knows. He got excited, too — he dreamt and his imagination ran wild and he couldn’t really contain it, push it in, try to remember that it was just a pipe dream. For a seocnd, before they looked at the tests, it felt real. Like they already had a little family — people made of them completely.
For as long as he’s known her, he’s wanted to be one with her, obsessively dreaming of morphing into her so much that he didn’t know where he ended and she began. She’s the best person he’s ever known — the love of his life, his other half, his soulmate. You were made for me, he keeps thinking every time he lays eyes on her, even more than a decade into knowing her, There must be a God out there, Melissa King, because you were tailor made for me. The thought would be unnerving — devastating, even — if he didn’t get to wake up every day next to her. Sometimes, he listens to the sound of her heartbeat, marveling at how lucky he has gotten.
Sometimes, when he wakes up and she isn’t next to him — when she’s up and running errands on the weekend before he’s even moved — he presses his face into the pillow, inhaling her scent just to remind himself that she’s real. That she was there and he didn’t dream of her.
So, of course, all he’s ever wanted — even before they had the talk, even before he really even knew it — was to have something that was made completely of them two. Morphed together in every way a person could be.
It’s only natural that they feel the tinge of disappointment, of sorrow, at the prospect of not having that just yet. Because for a second there, in that waiting room where the rest of their life started two years ago, they thought that they had it.
“I mean, it’s for the best,” she continues as Frank keeps catching the stubborn, slowed-down tears with his fingers before they even get to roll down her face, “The timing would be awful and we’re both working full time and I couldn’t really take a maternity leave just in the middle of it all and having a baby while being on IUD is not the safest thing for a baby, but—” she stops, shaking her head, “I don’t know why I’m acting like this, I’m sorry.”
“Mel,” he whispers her name, if you knew that I worship at the alter of your name, you would never be sorry ever again, baby, “I told you to never be sorry about a decade ago but I don’t know why it doesn’t stick.”
“Sorry?” she says sheepishly and despite the tears and the melancholy lingering in the air and all the hard, unsaid words, he laughs. He throws his head back just in the way that he knows Mel likes and he allows the air around them shift with the force of an amused huff that breaks the tension just a little bit. “Is what I feel right now so ridiculous?”
“No,” the answer comes to him easy and true. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little heartbroken myself, Mel. I mean, it’s just…” He can’t find the words to say, can’t just convey how much he wants this. A family with Mel. “The thought of having a mini-you was so appealing for a second there.”
“I know,” she agrees emphatically, her eyes a little brighter now that she knows Frank agrees with her. They sit like that for a long time, each of them lost in their thoughts, about a million miles away from this living room, perhaps detached in time more so than in space, traveling forward a year. Two years. A decade.
“Maybe we should—” “I think—” their voices clash, the sentences running into each other.
“You first,” he prompts.
“I was thinking,” Mel bites the corner of her nails, pulling her legs up so she’s like a ball sitting in his lap, “maybe I should make an appointment with my OBGYN. About taking out my IUD.” She looks a bit unsure, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose nervously. Frank reaches out and takes the glasses off her face, reaching for the cloth on the coffee table to wipe the small droplets of water gathered there. He puts the glasses back on the bridge of her nose again, touching the tip of her nose. “Thanks,” she says shyly.
“Taking out your IUD?” he asks, tilting his head, inching a little closer, leaning his forehead against hers.
“I mean,” she avoids looking into his eyes, biting on the corner of her skin. Frank reaches out to tug it free from her grasp and she seems to shrink into herself before clearing her throat. “Not right away. I still need to take my boards exam in a couple of months and then see which fellowship I will get into. Or even if I want to do a fellowship. I mean we should have extensive conversations about it—”
“And make lists,” he supplies helpfully which makes her smile widely, wrapping her arms around his waist, comfortably putting her legs on either side of his hips. “Fuck, you’re trying to kill me, sweetheart?”
“No, I need you for what comes after taking out my IUD,” she says shyly, looking up at him through her eyelashes. Something loosens in his chest — sings in his chest — and something twists in between his thighs. “So, what do you think?”
“I think,” he takes a deep breath, shifting so her back is pressed against the sofa, Frank trapping her in between his limbs. She giggles a little bit as he looks into her eyes, leaning down to bury her nose in the croak of her neck, taking in a deep breath — fucking hell, he thinks, this is driving me fucking nuts. “I want to do whatever you want me to do if you promise that our babies will come out looking like you.”
“What if I want them to look like you?” she pouts, reaching up to push the strands of hair out of his forehead, allowing her fingers to linger there.
“Well, tough luck,” he tsks, “My swimmers aim to be recessive genes so that your characteristics win.”
“Dark hair is more prompinent,” she pouts, “but I’m a little worried about the eyes. Brown eyes seems to beat out blue. But your blue eyes are so pretty.”
“Why, thank you, sweetheart,” he grins, reaching out to smooth out the line on her forehead. She giggles at the touch, sniffling as she blinks away the residue of the tears lingering back. For the first time in a week, Frank is relieved, everything out in the open — they need to talk plenty more just as Mel said but at least they are finally on the same page. He’s so relieved he can sob. “Fuck, Mel, I was so worried this past week,” he admits, his voice coming out weak and ragged, the worry finally released, the tension easing out of his shoulders.
She reaches out, hooking her arms around his neck, pressing him further into her core. That little minx, he thinks amusedly. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “What did I say about ‘sorries’?”
“That I should say it more often?” she says with a smile dancing on her lips.
He can’t wait anymore, then — he doesn’t even want to wait or control himself. He wants to take. He wants to be square with her, to melt into her. So he does. He presses his lips into hers, allowing himself to relax into her touch. Mel’s mouth is open before they really even touch, her lips parting, making way for Frank’s tongue to delve in. She lets out a small moan just as Frank’s fingers fiddle with the front of her robe, untangling the loose knot so it falls open.
“Fuck, baby, you smell so good,” he breathes out, disappointed that he can’t just inhale it all in, greedy about preserving it. He wishes he could stop exhaling so his lungs would stay filled with Melissa King’s scent. “Fuck,” he punches the word into her lips, eliciting a moan that he cherishes. He wants to record that fucking moan and put it on repeat until he’s passing out from orgasms coming because of that sound alone.
Jesus Christ.
“Frank,” she whispers his name and even the fuckass granddad name sounds hot when it’s coming off her lips. “Your scrubs,” she cringes.
Fuck. Right. He’s still wearing the contaminated, definitely hazardous scrubs he’s worn all night. He pulls back immediately, pulling the top off his back smoothly in the same motion as the T-shirt under it comes off. He kicks his pants just as quickly, the only cloth on his body now his underwear before climbing back on Mel. “Better?”
“Yeah,” she confirms. “Come here.” He doesn’t need to be told twice as he smirks and presses his lips against hers again — this time, her legs lock around his hips and he doesn’t even feel the familiar tinge of pain that tends to shoot up in positions like this. He’s too high on Mel to notice anything remotely unpleasent. “Please,” she pants out and he’s about to be a hound with blood running on his teeth if she keeps speaking like that.
His palm wants to explore every inch of her body, a map that he knows all too well but never wants to stop reading through. He presses his palm against her belly as his mouth trails a path from the corner of her jaw, her pulse-point — oh, her carotid is fucking delicious, he thinks vaguely, wondering if he’s now turned into a vampire as he bites on it, making sure it leaves behind a mark, red and appetizing — her clavicles. He stops when he reaches the top of her breast, his eyes hungrily scanning for the freckle above her right breast, near her nipple and the small red dot that’s under her left breast.
Her nipples are hard under his touch, glass-cutting, and with dizzying power he thinks, It’s me. I did this. I do this. Fucking hell. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me,” he breathes against her skin, just before he puts his mouth on her right breast, his tongue teasing her nipple, his ears hungry for the sound of her moans, his palm pressing her against the couch as she writhes under him. Her nails dig into his back, his muscles aching pleasurably, thinking they might draw blood. He’ll look at himself in the mirror and see faint scratches there, left behind by the woman that owns him.
God, the thought is enough to tip him very close to coming in his pants as his breaths grow ragged. Mel’s hands move until they are digging into the back of his neck, pulling on his hair. He pulls back to her flushed under him, wet because of his saliva smeared on her skin. Sexy. Fuck.
“We can’t have sex,” she says, her voice wobbly. “I mean, I’m on my period.”
“I mean,” he grins, “When has that stopped me before?” he raises an eyebrow, amused. For a second, Mel seems to hesitate. “I mean, we don’t have to. Obviously. But it’s no trouble for me. If you — I mean—”
“Shush for a second,” she shakes her head. “We should do it in the shower. We wouldn’t be able to take out the stains on the couch or the sheets.”
“Wait, really?”
She just raises an eyebrow and obviously Frank doesn’t need to be told twice.
—
One year later:
“I just mean that,” Becca says, sitting cross-legged on the floor, ripping into the pancake he’s made for breakfast that morning as is tradition. “The nursery should obviously be yellow. Because it’s good to be gender neutral.”
“And I’m saying,” Frank returns, pointing the spatula Becca’s way as he stands above the stove. “Fuck that shit because yellow sucks.”
“It’s a very respectable color!” Becca argues. “It’s better than pink or,” — she cringes — “blue.”
“Blue is a very good color,” Mel says, for the first time looking up from her book to join their argument. “Frank’s eyes are blue.”
“Thank you,” Frank smiles triumphantly as his sister-in-law. “See? Mel agrees with me.”
“I didn’t say that,” Mel mumbles pushing her glasses up her nose. “And you two do realize that we don’t have to have a nursary just yet. First because we don’t have the room and secondly because there is no baby just yet!”
“But they will be,” Becca pouts. “You took out your IUD last month and it’s only a matter of time considering you two… you know,” she wrinkles her nose, shaking her head as a shudder runs through her body. “I don’t want to say it.”
“No, please, Becs, do say it,” Frank grins. He is kind of obsessed with how King sisters cannot for the life of them use curse words. One time, he saw Mel use the f-word because a fucking idiot kept insisting that vaccines were turning their kids into transgender autistic aliens and hence they were content not vaccinating the kid. She obviously didn’t say it to the patient but later in the lounge where Samira and Frank were trying to calm her down and she turned so red that it would be funny if the subject matter wasn’t so fucking tragic.
“I don’t want,” she mumbles, “you know.”
“Fucking?”
“Frank!” Mel snaps. “Language.”
“You two are literally thrity-one!” he argues. “I can drop f-bombs in front of people in their thirties!”
“Not about our personal life!” she argues. “Sorry, Becca. That was very not nice of Frank.”
“It’s okay,” her sister shakes her head. “I’m used to Frank being not nice.”
“Ouch?” he frowns, turning off the stove as he takes off the last batch of pancakes, dropping one in Mel’s plate, one in his own and two for Becca just as an indirect apology that she seems to accept as she happily rips into the chocolate chip pancake. “Am I not nice, Mel?” he pouts, sitting on the couch next to her, putting his plate on the coffee table. Mel leans into him before he’s even fully settled, butterflies violently moving around in his stomach at the contact.
“No, you’re very nice, Dr. Langdon.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” he grins.
“Frank!” Mel gasps. “I wasn’t—”
“Kidding, babe,” he clicks his tongue. “I was just joshing around.”
“No one even says ‘josh around’ anymore,” Becca wrinkles her nose like Frank’s just said something very distatestful. “You’re very old.”
“Hey, I’m just four years older than the two of you.”
“Well, your vocabulary seems to be older!” Becca argues. “What are you going to say next? Whoopsie daisy?”
“I might,” Frank shrugs, putting his arms around Mel as she shifts so her back is pressed against his side, pulling her legs up on the couch as she flips a page. “What are you reading, baby?”
“What to expect when you’re expecting,” she says so monotonous and casual that Frank very nearly chokes on his own saliva.
“We’re not even expecting?!” he says, his eyes wide, hesitates for a second before adding. “Wait, we aren’t, right?”
“I don’t think your swimmers are that strong, Frank,” Mel says cooly. “I just like to be prepared. And it’s very interesting. Though I do think some medical parts would do with some revisions. I mean, this segment,” — she points to a page that from what Frank can gather in the light skimming that he does is about nutrition in the prenatal phase — “needs some updates. The new guidelines don’t agree with all the sentiments here.”
“How do you know?”
“I read a little about it last month,” she shrugs. “There are some really nice articles out. I sent you the link to two of them.”
“You didn’t text them to me?”
“I e-mailed them,” she frowns, looking at him. “I wanted to be able to put them in a folder so I figured e-mails would be more appropriate. I even started a google sheets to track the most important information in bullet points. I added you on that.”
“You know I don’t check my e-mails,” he groans.
“Well, please do check your emails frequently,” Mel replies, unbothered, turning back to her books, “I’m going to send you some new articles.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he clicks his tongue.
“We should make a list of baby names,” Mel says after a while. “We can have three catgeories. Boy, girl and gender neutral.”
“Isn’t that a bit… too soon?” Frank tries to say as carefully as he can but the King sisters don’t waste any time snapping their neck and narrowing their eyes at him, making him gulp a little bit. Mel’s always been a planner — she draws them up months in advance. Frank actually thinks she gets a little turned on when she so much as thinks of planning (which usually bodes well for him) but this…
He just doesn’t want them to be disappointed, planning months ahead and having to wait for a long time for it to actually happen.
“I mean,” he tries to tread lightly. Mel has never actually banished him to sleep on the couch in the living room (and it’s because she says him being there helps her sleep even when she’s a bit ticked off at him) but he’s not about to tempt fate by going about this carelessly. “Maybe we should just live in the moment. Take it as it comes.”
“Do you think we aren’t going to be able to get pregnant?” Mel chews on her lower lips, putting the book on the coffee table, leaning away from him and putting her knees up to put some distance between them. “Is it because we weren’t pregnant the last time we took a test?”
“No,” he rushes to get the word out, his head snapping to the side and back so quickly that he’s sure a muscle cramps up. “No, I don’t think — c’mon, Mel. We weren’t even trying last year. Obviously it’s not about that. I just think that sometimes when you look at a baby, you sorta come up with the name and the lists and plans and all that kinda goes out the window,” — he pauses and then adds — “Also maybe we just focus on the pre-natal phase of it all right now.”
“But if we don’t plan,” Becca adds from the ground, “It might mean you’ll panic and name the kid something ridiculous! Like an old man name—”
“Like Frank,” he deadpans, finishing Becca’s sentence and by the way she grins triumphantly, he knows that was where that sentence was going, huffing out his breath. “Alright, Jesus — you two defeated me. Make the list.”
“Really?” Mel’s eyes light up. “I mean, I think Frank is a really nice name, but—”
“No it’s not,” he interrupts, shaking his head. “Who knows? Maybe if my mom had made a list he wouldn’t name me after my great grandfather in the twenty-first century.”
“Well, she technically named you in the twentieth century,” Mel corrects, smiling apologetically when Frank throws an unimpressed glance her way. “Sorry, honey.” That is also a new development. Last week Mel announced that since they are going to have a baby — and she always says it with such certainty that Frank thinks that it’s actually happening and his body always buzzes with excitement at the prospect — she should get comfortable with ‘pet names’ so she’s been experimenting with calling Frank pet names and so far ‘honey’ seems to be the one she’s most comfortable with.
So far, Frank has zero complaints.
“No, rip my heart right out, why don’t you?” he sighs, leaning back against the couch as Mel melts into him again now that the argument seems to have been over, point to Mel (as always, much to Frank’s own delight). “So what were you thinking?”
“Cordelia,” Mel hums. “When I was a kid, I really liked that name. It made me feel like it belonged to a French princess.”
“We can call her Cory,” Frank tastes the name. “Yeah, that’s nice. Put it on the list.” She nods, pulling out her phone and opening another page on her google docs account. She has a lot of documents there — color-coded, appropriately named. He loves that. Loves the excitment she feels in her body when she recounts the new documents she’s stared, when she shares them with him and allows him to add to it, leave comments and his thoughts. He loves her — this woman that he was lucky enough to fall in love with, lucky enough to get to know.
“Jennifer,” Becca supplies from the floor.
“Are we only having girls in this hypotheticals?”
“Jeremy?”
“No,” Mel shakes her head. “I was classmates with a Jeremy. He wasn’t very nice.”
“No J-names,” Frank agrees. “Not very nice.” Mel makes a note at the end of the document, starting a bulleted list. No J-names. “And no grandparent names.” He’s still traumatized by that one. Mel adds that to the end of the list as well.
Mel and Becca keep bouncing names off each other. Some get veto’d, some get added to list. Mel ends up starting a catgeory under ‘circle back to’ for names that she isn’t sure enough to pass but doesn’t like enough to put on an official list. Frank just takes a back seat after a while, just agreeing with them contently every time an argument warrants his opinion.
He looks around at the living room — at the rays of light sneaking in from between the curtains, dancing on the two of them who are sitting on the ground, at Becca who is going to be a great aunt, at the excitement feeling a house that was depressingly empty last year around the same time, a place where they allow themselves to dream, to soar.
He thinks, almost giddily, about how next year, there might be a pair of little legs kicking in this house. He hopes that there will be — maybe twins like their mother and her sister, maybe carbon-copies of him and his siblings with dark hair and bright eyes and maybe golden strands of baby hair will be on their heads.
Whatever it might be — whoever they might be — he feels almost giddy. So fucking impatient to meet them.
“What are you thinking about?” Mel whispers in his ears, tugging at his sleeve to make him look at her. He blinks.
“That you’re going to be such a good mom,” he replies. She will be the best — making their kids wear small organized outfits, so understanding and so kind. She will raise them up to be great people. They will do it together.
“You’ll be a great dad, too.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “I will try.”
And maybe they are not yet. But he knows in his heart — in his soul, in his root — that they will be great no matter what. Because they are together and together, they are a team.
They are invincible, after all.