treacherous

by somnatic

Summary:

Something clattered in the bathroom. Everything inside of Mel went very, very still.
Santos looked at the shut door. She processed.
“Mel King, you dirty dog.” A slow grin stretched over her face. “Did you hook up with someone last night?”

(The gang goes to a medical conference.)

Mel got to the airport gate before any of her colleagues. 

She was so early, the screens still showed the time and destination for the flight before hers (6:30 to Chicago), but she double checked the gate number and got herself situated in an open seat in the corner, satisfyingly close to an outlet. She filled up her water bottle and pulled out her book, a sci-fi novel she’d been meaning to dig into for months. 

She’d been staring at the same page for twenty minutes by the time Dr. Robby showed up, a cup of hot coffee from the Dunkin Donuts near security in his hand. They exchanged pleasantries about the weather and the weekend ahead before Robby pulled out a thick novel and some reading glasses, and Mel took the hint that it was too early for her to keep babbling. Garcia strolled up half an hour later. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses with a big, expensive weekender bag over her shoulder and generally looked like she didn’t want anyone to talk to her. 

Santos and Langdon got to the gate at the same time. Santos shot him a dirty look before she sprawled into the seat next to Mel. It was amazing how much space she could take up, for such a small person.

“Hi, Mel.”

“Hi, Trinity.” Mel studied her. “Why are you so out of breath?”

“Langdon and I were racing to the gate.” She muttered, looking up to glare at him again, but Langdon was talking to Garcia, not paying them any attention.

“You were racing?”

“Yep.” Santos pressed her lips together. “We were across from each other in the security line. Stupid bastard saw me putting my shoes on afterward and decided to run. I won.”

“Okay.” Mel nodded, like that made sense to her. She clenched and unclenched her hands, checking how much time they had before they needed to board— thirty minutes. She looked up, and Langdon was staring at her. He gave her a little wave. She waved back.

“Have you ever been to a conference?” Santos asked her, not looking up from her phone. Mel glanced at the screen— she was playing Doodle Jump.

“Once, a few years ago in Utah.” 

“Ew.” 

“I liked it.” She had— the sky was so big and open, the buildings rambling like they had all the space in the world to stretch out. Mel had always lived in compact places. “I saw a really interesting panel about wilderness medicine. They get so many hikers out there, you know, with those mountains.”

Santos hummed. “Cool.” She didn’t seem to think it was that cool. She cursed softly under her breath, and Mel looked over to see that her Doodle Jump character had fallen. 

They were traveling to San Diego for an emergency medicine conference. It was three days, Friday to Sunday, and Mel was excited for the most part. She’d spent hours poring carefully over the events and panel speakers, where they’d studied and what they’d published articles on. Robby and Garcia were both speakers. Langdon, Mel, and Santos were just tagging along.

In the line to board the plane, Mel was taking deep, slightly trembly breaths when Langdon spoke from over her shoulder. “I don’t know the last time I saw someone with a physical plane ticket was.”

“This is a boarding pass, not a ticket.” Mel tightened her grip on it. Everyone else had theirs on their phone, but Mel had stopped by a kiosk to print hers before the flight. “Physical passes can’t glitch or lose battery, and Becca’s been really into scrapbooking lately. She’ll love it.”

“How is Becca? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Oh, she’s good.” The line shifted a little, and Mel pushed her suitcase forward before turning to smile at him, glad he asked. “She just started volunteering at the library—”

“When did you meet Becca?” Santos turned around from in front of Mel, making a face at Langdon.

“Mel and I are friends. Of course, I’ve met Becca.” Frank looked insulted. Santos seemed like she was rearing to say something else, but Mel interjected.

“The family picnic. You both met her then.” 

It’d been a few months before, and the picnic itself had actually been very short-lived. They ate macaroni salad in the park and Mel had introduced Becca to her friends, so excited for them to meet her. Mateo had just arrived with an armful of Frisbees before there was a six car pile-up downtown and they had all been called in.

“Oh.” It was Santos’s turn to scan her boarding pass. Mel followed behind her, smiling and saying good morning to the flight attendant.

“I told Robby we’d play nice this weekend,” Langdon said under his breath.

“Well, I think you probably shouldn’t speak for Santos.”

The five-hour plane ride passed quickly when you slept through most of it, which is what Mel did. She hated the feeling of getting off a plane—that dehydrated, grumpy shuffle—but it was worth it when the first thing she saw out the windows of the San Diego airport were palm trees. She took a deep breath, but it was still airport air she was breathing, not fresh beach, and she exhaled a little disappointedly.

As it turned out, Robby was an incredibly efficient person to navigate an airport with. Mel appreciated it. With quick steps, he steered them through thickets of tourists and past baggage claim out to the shuttle pickup. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper leaving the airport, but none of them minded a thing like that when the road ran parallel to the ocean. Miles and miles of beachfront and glittering blue ocean stretched alongside them— Mel resisted the urge to press her nose to the glass and stare.

“Have you been to California before, Dr. King?” Robby was grinning. Something in his face had relaxed, the moment they’d stepped off the plane. He probably needed a break more than any of them, Mel thought.

“No, but I’ve always wanted to.” She could hear the incredulity in her tone, something she usually tried to tamp down around her coworkers. She knew it made her come off as young, but she couldn’t quite hold it back today.

Beside her, Langdon let out a low whistle. “It sure is beautiful.”

When they piled out of the shuttle and onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel, Mel took a second to study the building, spiraling white stucco with a terracotta roof. It was almost blinding against the spotless blue sky. The air was warm on her face, and she tilted it gladly up and into the sunlight, eyes closed. Around her, Langdon and Garcia were chatting while pulling suitcases from the back of the van— something about the shuttle, and how the last conference had made them rent cars, and how much nicer this was than the last one.

Mel’s moment of peace was shattered by a screech from Santos. 

She flinched and opened her eyes, startled to see that a man had picked Santos up and was swinging her around in a tight embrace. If it weren’t for Trinity’s joyous peals of laughter, a sound Mel had certainly never heard her make before, she would have been worried. Everyone else watched the scene with matching expressions of confusion and surprise, while Mel nervously eyed the inches between Santos’s shoes and the ground.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here, you asshole,” she said cheerily, slugging the man in the shoulder after he put her down. “You should’ve told me.”

“And ruin the surprise?” The man’s smile was big. “You know me better than that, Trinity.”

He was tall and objectively handsome, Mel could tell, although she was more interested in his Johns Hopkins sweatshirt than the sandy brown hair that flopped into his eyes.

“Are these your coworkers?”

“Oh, right.” Santos turned, her grin wide. “Guys, this is Tyler Pearson. He’s a good friend of mine from undergrad, and he’s a resident at St. Luke’s in Boston.” 

She did individual introductions, and Tyler shook their hands, his grip firm and dry. His name tugged at Mel, somehow familiar.

Robby greeted him brightly as they made their way into the hotel lobby. “St. Luke’s, huh? Do you know a Dr. Agarwal?”

“Oh, he’s the best. Dr. A wrote the letter of recommendation for my fellowship, wouldn’t have made it without him.”  Tyler waved in greeting at a few women across the lobby, and they all smiled and giggled a little. They didn’t look like they were there for the medical conference. 

It turned out Dr. Agarwal was one of Robby’s mentors, so they had much to talk about as they checked in. Mel was more concerned about getting her room key and being able to change before dinner— they only had an hour or so before the first networking event began.

Alone in her room, finally, Mel took a second to collapse onto the bed. When she was done wiping down the high-touch surfaces with her travel wipes, she changed into the outfit she’d packed for dinner that night and splashed water on her face, smoothing her hair back into a low bun.

She didn’t mind networking events, but dinners were always tough. The food was almost certain to be mediocre and the room was always just a smidge too loud. Still, she was perfectly on time, and gave big smiles and handshakes to at least ten people in twenty minutes, which might be a new personal record.

She ended up sat next to Santos and across from Tyler, which was a chaotic table. They told raucous stories about late nights in the library and getting drunk at college bars, cackling about the time Santos accidentally invited 500 people to a party at someone else’s house and it’d made the newspapers. Mel sipped at her water and reminisced on her own college experience, which was a lot of sitting at the kitchen table hunched over her books while Becca slept. 

“So, Mel, where are you from?” Tyler smiled at her in a pause in the conversation, and Mel realized she had hardly spoken since they sat down.

“I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan.” Mel took a bite of dry salad.

“Oh, no way! I grew up two hours from there, in Kalamazoo.” He made a face at Santos. “Why didn’t you tell me she was from Michigan?”

Santos ran her eyes over Mel. “I thought it was obvious.”

He ignored her. “So, did you go to UMich?” Tyler was very, very good at making eye contact. Mel felt like it might be the first time all day someone had been singularly focused on what she had to say, and she blushed a little under the intensity of his keen gaze.

“I did. Both for undergrad and for med school— my dad used to be a professor there. Actually, I think he did a guest lecture series in Kalamazoo, once. I remember visiting a few times growing up.” She had vague memories of laying in the grass at a park, maybe a quad, while her dad graded papers and met with students.

“That’s awesome.” He nodded, his eyes still studying her, and took a final bite of his chicken. “I knew I liked the look of you.” 

It had been a while since Mel had gotten to reminisce about Michigan, and Tyler indulged her. He knew about Faygo soda and Petoskey stones, and he’d had been to the incredible ice cream stand in New Buffalo that Mel remembered from a road trip when she was eight. Mel was smiling so big she thought her cheeks might start to hurt.

“God, the East coast is great but don’t you miss grocery shopping at Meijer?”

The question was so preposterous that it made Mel laugh a full, loud laugh. When she glanced up, she made accidental eye contact with Langdon down the table. He was watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.

Santos shoveled chicken into her mouth and muttered something about how quaint it all sounded. Tyler retorted instantly, and then they were back to their friendly bickering, the kind of arguing you only did with someone you knew as well as they obviously knew each other. Mel missed that feeling.

Robby nudged Langdon, and he took his eyes off of Mel.

“How did you sleep?”

“Hm?” Mel looked up from her notebook and the event schedule. She’d been trying to decide between the panel on management of sodium disorders in the ED or a panel on precision medicine during triage, both of which happened at four o’clock.

Langdon smiled a little and repeated the question. They were eating breakfast in the crowded hotel courtyard, sunlight dappled from the palm trees above them streaming over the table. It made Langdon’s face look unfairly nice, she thought, before she remembered she was supposed to be answering a question.

“Oh. I slept okay, I brought melatonin.” She pinched off a bite of her blueberry muffin. “What about you?”

Langdon’s eyebrows had furrowed a little bit. “Do you often need melatonin to sleep?” Sometimes, Mel forgot she was always talking to other doctors.

“No, just in new places.” She ignored the strange warm sensation in her chest at the thought of his concern. “I take melatonin to sleep maybe twice a year. Nothing to worry about.”

His face relaxed. “Good.”  He craned his neck to see what she had been writing. “Where are you heading after lunch?”

Mel explained her dilemma about having to choose between the panels. Langdon leaned forward and studied the schedule, strands of his hair falling over his forehead. This close, she could smell his aftershave, something clean and electric, and she inhaled deeply, trying to be subtle about it. 

“I’m just so excited about both panels. I don’t want to miss either one.” She gnawed on her lip, trying to puzzle it out. 

“Tell you what.” He looked up at her, and she was momentarily distracted by the sight of his eyelashes so close. “I think you’ll like the hypernatremia talk. You go to that one, and I’ll go to the triage one and take notes for you. I’ll fill you in on the whole thing, it’ll be like you were there.”

“Really?” Mel perked up, smiling. “You don’t really strike me as much of a note taker.”

Langdon frowned good-naturedly. “What, are you worried my note-taking abilities aren’t up to your standards?”

Mel hesitated. She didn’t want to say yes, but she’d read his chart notes before, and they were always short and succinct. In meetings or during rounds, Langdon tended to recline, hands behind his head, listening and nodding while other people (Mel) scribbled. It spoke more to his intelligence than a lack of caring, she knew, but she didn’t want to say that out loud. 

Her silence ended up speaking for her. Langdon scoffed, but he was smiling now. “Ouch, Mel. That hurts.” He leaned back and splayed a hand over his heart. “Now we really have to do this. I’m going to write you the best goddamn notes you’ve ever seen. You’re going to love it.”

Mel felt a little flustered. He was joking, mostly, she was sure, but his face was determined, and it made something flutter in her stomach. It should not be attractive that someone was offering to take notes for her.

“Thank you,” she said softly. Her cheeks were hot and she looked down, focused on impaling a blueberry with her fork.

Then Santos crash-landed into the chair beside her, dropping her plate onto the table and effectively shattering the sun-warmed moment.

“Good morning, losers.”

Langdon scowled at her. “Do you ever show up anywhere with any fucking decorum?”

“Oh, whatever, Grandpa,” Santos said, and stole a grape off his plate. He smacked her hand away. “Mel, how’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” Mel told her, and bit into another blueberry. She wasn’t sure why that was always the question people asked when you traveled with them, but it was clear that it was one of those questions where Santos had asked, but didn’t really need the answer. She was getting better at identifying those.

Santos didn’t wait long to get into what she actually wanted to talk about. “So,” she said innocently after letting a few beats pass. “What did you think of my friend Tyler last night?”

“He was really nice,” Mel said. She was distracted, still trying to shake off her conversation with Langdon. “He’s presenting at 11, right?”

“Yep. The neurologic emergencies panel. He’d be really happy to see you there.” She bit very intentionally into a piece of bacon, staring Mel down like she was trying to communicate something else. Mel hated those types of stares.

“Well, I’ll be there,” she responded, taking a bite of her vegan sausage and sweet potato scramble. “So lucky him, I guess.”

“I mean, he’ll be really happy to see you there,” Santos enunciated slowly, which Mel disliked even more than the stare. 

“I don’t know what you mean by that.” She looked to Langdon, but he seemed very occupied by his plate. “Does he want to network, or something?”

Santos snorted. “Yeah, networking is one way to put it.” She looked around and leaned in, which made Mel tense up. “He told me last night that he thinks you’re really cute.”

Langdon coughed into a forkful of eggs. Mel looked at him concerned, but he just shook his head and took a sip of water, clearing his throat. Santos stared at Mel expectantly. 

“Oh.” Mel blushed a little and she sat up straighter, dragging her knife through the scramble. “That’s very nice of him.” 

“Oh, come on!” Santos sighed, flopping dramatically against the back of her chair. “You don’t think he’s hot? I practically had to fend girls off with sticks in undergrad, everyone was after him. Plus, you guys had that whole freaky Michigan thing going on.”

Mel considered. He was definitely handsome, in a wholesome corn-fed way. She liked that he was nice, and seemed to charm other people, which was a skill she sometimes lacked, and she liked that he was presenting at a medical conference as a resident. On paper, he was great, but Mel had always liked people who were a little scrappier.

“I guess he is,” she admitted slowly. “But I’m not looking to date right now.”

Santos scoffed. “I’m not asking you to be his child bride, Mel. Just let me set you up with him tonight.” She read the look on Mel’s face. “Come on, King, don’t be boring. Everyone hooks up at conferences.”

“That is not true.” Mel began to fidget with the napkin in her lap, tearing off strips of it and twining them between her fingers.

“Everyone hooks up at conferences,” Garcia agreed as she slung a leg over the chair next to Santos. “What are we talking about?”

“My friend Tyler thinks Mel is cute.”

Mel winced into her glass of orange juice. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire.

“Oh, the guy who sat with us last night?” She eyed Mel approvingly. “He was hot. You should hit that.”

“I’m not going to hit anybody ,” Mel said, appalled. That made even Langdon laugh, and it occurred to Mel that he had been conspicuously quiet since they’d started talking. 

“Just come out with us tonight,” Santos said. “I think most of us are going to the bar after the last networking thingy.” She could read the hesitation on Mel’s face. “You can even pick his brain about sepsis biomarkers. I know you’re into that shit. It’s what his thesis was on.”

Mel perked up a little bit. “I’d have a few questions, yeah.”

“Great.” Santos smiled, and Mel felt sort of like she had agreed to stick her bloodied foot into a pool full of sharks. Then Robby was sitting down with them with them, complaining about the line to get coffee, and the conversation shifted (much to Mel’s relief).

“I’m going to go call Becca before the opening meeting,” Mel told them once she’d finished eating, and ducked out onto the back terrace of the hotel. It was a gorgeous day. The ocean sprawled out in front of her, miles and miles of docked boats and shimmering blue ocean. Besides a few men drinking coffee who she vaguely recognized from the dinner last night, the terrace was much emptier and quieter than the courtyard and dining space had been.

Becca picked up on the first ring. Like always, the sight of her smiling face relaxed Mel instantly. “Mel!”

“Hi, Becca.” Mel smiled. “Sorry to call you so early, but I wanted to make sure I caught you before the day got busy.”

“That’s okay. I was just getting ready for breakfast.” She panned the camera over to Katie, her roommate at the center when she stayed nights there. “Katie says hi.“

Mel said hi back to Katie, then flipped the camera so Becca could see the glittering ocean. “Check out my view!”

“It sort of looks like Lake Erie,” Becca said bluntly, which made Mel laugh so hard that the men with coffee looked over at her.

“Don’t let a Californian hear you say that.” She flipped the camera back around. They spent a few more minutes catching up before Mel made her way back inside, feeling much more at peace than she had been at breakfast.

“Dr. King!” 

She turned, but Tyler was already at her side. “Good morning,” he smiled warmly. “You look nice today.” 

Mel looked down. She was wearing her fanciest sweater, the green one from Nordstrom Rack that Becca said brought out her eyes, and black slacks. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

“Did you get breakfast this morning?”

Mel told him that she did, and they made small talk about hotel food all the way into the conference room. She’d meant to look for her friends and sit with them, but then Tyler was saying something about banana bread with nuts and asking if she had any strong opinions on it, and she was so distracted by what an odd question it was that she hardly noticed him steering her towards a set of seats on the end of an aisle.

It took a second, but Mel had laid eyes on her friends by the time opening remarks started. They were a few rows behind. Garcia was leaning over to whisper something in Santos’s ear, both their faces in that weird devious smile they liked to wear around each other. Langdon had an open seat next to him.

The next few hours were a thrill of shuffling from conference room to conference room and listening to panels that fascinated her. Robby and Garcia did well— they spoke mostly about their experiences as doctors in one of the only trauma centers in a major metropolitan area, and Mel saw everyone in the room scribbling down all of Robby’s advice about unconventional patient care during an MCI. Mel filled up six pages in her notebook listening to the presentation Tyler did, while Langdon sat next to her with his hands folded and didn’t write a single thing down.

“Oh, I knew all that already,” he said when she asked about it. “Neurologic emergencies are my bread and butter.”

Santos had snorted. “Sure. I’m pretty sure Tyler won like, four grants for that research.”

At lunch, the hotel brought in cold subs and everyone crammed themselves around folding tables in the same conference room they’d had opening remarks in. By the time Mel had made it out of the vegetarian sandwich line, clutching desperately onto a small bag of Cheetos, nearly all the seats had been taken. The room was painfully loud, all the different chatter bouncing off the walls and discordantly swirling in her ears.

 Mel contemplated trying to find a seat and stick it out, but she couldn’t find a familiar face in the crowd, and it was getting overwhelming. She slipped into the quiet hallway and found a corner to plop herself down in, folding her legs in front of her and taking a deep, grateful breath. The silence washed over her, and she realized she hadn’t untensed in hours.

Much to her surprise, she was only a few bites into her sub when her spot was discovered.

“Hey.” It was Langdon. His smile was tentative, one hand pushing the hair from his face. “You okay?”

Mel nodded. “It was really loud in there.”

“It was.” He paused. “Do you want some company?”

 When she nodded, he folded himself onto the ground beside her, letting out an involuntary groan as he did so. “I nearly got into a fistfight over the last turkey and cheese. What kind did you get?”

“I think it’s just lettuce, avocado and provolone.” She lifted it up to show him. 

Langdon frowned, suspiciously eyeing the limp piece of lettuce that fell out of her sub. “No other vegetarian options?”

Mel shrugged. “No. They never have good choices at things like these, but hopefully they should have something for me at dinner.” 

Unexpectedly, Frank leaned closer to her and she was startlingly worried at his proximity until she realized he was fishing around for something in his pants pocket. He pulled out an extremely crumpled protein bar.

“You should take this. Sorry, it’s a little crushed, but it’s blueberry almond.” He waved it in her direction, as if trying to make it enticing. “In case you get hungry later.”

“Oh.” Mel felt herself blush a little as she took the bar from him. It was warm from his pocket. “Thank you, Langdon. That’s kind of you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I was getting sick of that flavor anyway.” 

Mel tucked the bar into her own pocket, smiling to herself. When she glanced back up, he was staring at her, his face a little weird. “You have a little…” He trailed off and gestured to his mouth.

“Oh!” Mortified, Mel scrubbed at her mouth with her napkin. 

“No, no, it’s okay, it’s just a crumb. Hold still, I’ll get it.” Before she could react, Langdon was reaching up and brushing his thumb along her lip. The touch was gentle. Mel fought off a shiver, her eyes locked on his which were now focused on her mouth. 

Mel’s lips parted. Langdon took a breath and pulled his hand away, strumming it down his pant leg like the move was casual.

He coughed. “So how long have you been eating vegetarian?”

Mel thought about it. “Almost twenty years. I started when I was 10.” She’d seen a documentary with her dad about the meatpacking industry, and had vowed never to eat it again. 

“Wow,” Langdon blew out a breath, maybe impressed. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done for twenty years.”

“You were in school for twenty years,” she pointed out. “If you count elementary.” 

He laughed. “I guess that’s true.”

There was a companionable silence as they finished their sandwiches, Mel’s knees tucked up against her chest. She had always liked that about Langdon— he didn’t mind when she needed to be quiet and recharge. Her lip still felt tingly where he’d brushed against it.

The silence only lasted so long. Langdon swallowed what was left in his water bottle then crinkled the plastic in his hands, clearing his throat. “So, that Tyler guy—”

A door pushed open down the hall, and the sound made Mel jump. Her shoulder hit Langdon’s. She hadn’t realized they’d been sitting so close.

“There you are!” It was Robby. He gestured at them with two fingers, and Mel instinctively and immediately began to move, like she was back in the hospital. “They’re taking a big group photo. C’mon.”

Langdon got to his feet with a loud groan, holding out both hands to help Mel up. She exhaled as he pulled her up with an ease that was surprising. The nurses were always on his case about being skinny, but he was stronger than she expected, his hands firm around hers.

He let her go and they made their way back down the hall. Langdon snagged a pen from a table as they passed. “So I can take notes on precision medicine,” he said to her. Mel smiled.

They split up for most of the afternoon. She ended up, surprisingly, sitting next to Tyler and Santos for most of the talks. He was very polite and attentive— he held every door open for them, and picked up Mel’s pen when she dropped it, and filled up Mel’s water bottle when he went to fill his own. Santos gave her a shit-eating grin each time Mel said thank you.

“Are you showering before we go out?” Santos asked in the elevator on their way up to their rooms. It was just the two of them—Tyler had hung back to wrap up a conversation with some attendings from San Francisco.

Mel gave her a strange look and surreptitiously sniffed her shirt. “No, why?”

“I’m coming over so we can get ready together.” She said it like it was obvious, tightening her ponytail in the reflection of the elevator doors.

Quietly, Mel was very pleasantly surprised. She’d never really had the type of friends who all got ready together, although she’d always secretly wished she had. “Oh. Okay. Sounds good.” She tried to squash the very big smile stretching over her face.

Thirty minutes later, Santos was knocking on her door with an armful of alcoholic seltzers and a makeup bag. When Mel let her inside, she scanned her outfit and made a disapproving face.

“That sweater needs to go.”

“What?” Mel frowned and glanced down at herself. “I like this sweater.”

“What else do you have?” Santos was already assuredly flipping through Mel’s suitcase, ignoring her protests. She didn’t seem to find anything that matched her standards, because she paused and thought for a second. “I have something that’ll look really cute, I think. Be right back.”

Before Mel could even respond, Santos had snagged her key card off the desk and disappeared out the door. Mel meticulously straightened her suitcase out and then zipped it, sticking it inside the closet in case Trinity got any ideas. 

She returned moments later with a pile of fabric in hand— a black tank top and a thin blue cardigan. Mel inspected the items before she sighed and shrugged out of her cozy sweater. Santos had seen her in her bra in the locker room at least a dozen times, so there was no point ducking into the bathroom as she tugged the black tank top over her head.

Admittedly, the outfit was cute. Mel’s torso was a little longer than Santos’s, her shoulders a little broader, so the top kept riding up to expose a little strip of skin above the waistband of her jeans. Mel sighed and pulled it down, knowing she’d be fidgeting all night, but Santos batted her hands away, buttoning the cardigan just so. 

“It’s very sexy girl-next-door,” she proclaimed proudly, whirling to face her makeup bag. “Now sit on the edge of the bed.”

Surprised, Mel sat. She begged off the mascara and eyeliner (she hated things around her eyes, it made them feel heavy), but let Santos half-straddle her leg to smudge a glowy pink stain across her cheeks and her lips. She used her finger to blend it out and then smoothed something shimmery, almost glittery over the high points of her face. Mel sort of liked the feeling of being fussed over; Santos’s hands were careful and the pressure was nice, her mouth a little parted in concentration. She patted something underneath Mel’s eyes and on her chin, and then turned her attention to Mel’s hair. Without asking, she gently tugged the elastic from her braid and ran her fingers close to Mel’s scalp, fluffing her hair loosely around her shoulders. It occurred to Mel that their faces were very close together. She suddenly felt extremely warm.

Finally, Santos stepped back, and Mel felt an immediate brush of cool air from the hotel air conditioning in her absence. 

“There.” She took a sip of her mango seltzer, eyes appraising the work she’d done to Mel’s appearance. “You look amazing.”

Mel stood and went to look at herself in the mirror. She looked like herself, but a little brighter, somehow, more luminous. Her cheeks were pinker and her mouth seemed a little more round and softer around the edges than it had been. “That’s impressive,” she admitted softly, and Santos smirked before starting on her own face.

They chatted idly while Santos lined her eyes with smudgy black pencil and made her cheeks shiny in the same way she’d done Mel’s. Mel sat on the bed and sipped at the cold seltzer, a strawberry flavor that bubbled across her tongue not unpleasantly. It turned out that Santos and Whitaker were living together, which Mel hadn’t known, and Santos had lots to say about it. He was good at taking out the trash, but less good about washing his dishes in a timely manner, and apparently he had a huge crush on one of the nurses, which Mel hadn’t picked up on either.

“And that’s not to mention his crush on Robby, which I don’t think even Whitaker knows about,” Santos said casually as she swiped on lip gloss. Mel nearly spat out her drink.

“What?”

Santos eyed her. “You really don’t pay attention, do you?” She capped her gloss. “I mean, Robby’s hot if you’re into that whole grizzly, sad-but-charming thing. Whitaker just lets himself be thrown around by him, shift after shift. It’s wild. And don’t you ever think about how weird it is that Collins and Robby used to date?”

She let out a loud laugh at the look on Mel’s face. “You didn’t know that? Mel, like half of our colleagues either are or were in love with each other. You seriously never noticed?”

A lot of memories from the ED were very busy recontextualizing themselves in Mel’s head. She felt genuinely baffled. “Who else?”

“Well,” Santos spun around in her chair and thought about it, ticking the names off on her fingers. “Abbott is always flirting with Mohan, but I don’t think she notices, which is crazy because I’d be jumping on that if I were her. Javadi is obsessed with Mateo, of course, but everyone knows that. I think Walsh and Abbott used to hook up, like forever ago, but now she and Shen are doing something weird. There’s Whitaker and Nurse Kim, but I already told you that.” She shrugged. “I think I heard a rumor about McKay and Dana once, but I’m pretty certain that was just Garcia messing with me.”

“Oh.” Mel tangled her fingers in her lap. “I didn’t know about that.”

Her mind flickered, briefly, to Langdon, whose absence on the list was notable. It made sense— his divorce had been only been final for a year. The tan line on his hand had faded, though, and Mel found herself wondering whether he’d been interested in anyone else since Abby. Probably not.

“What about you?”

“Hm?” Mel glanced up, pointedly not thinking about Langdon’s thumb on her mouth earlier that day. 

“I’m sure you have the hots for somebody.” Santos settled back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. “Tell me who.”

“I don’t,” Mel said quickly. “I don’t think about my colleagues like that. Plus, I don’t have any time to date.” The second part was true, but Santos looked unconvinced, so Mel pivoted. “Do you?”

Santos leveled her with a look that seemed to say touché. She lifted the can to her mouth and chugged what was left of it before crushing it in her hand. “Nope.” She tossed it towards the recycling bin and missed. “Let’s go, hotshot.”

“Here you go, Mel.”

With a charming smile, Tyler slid a cider across the table towards her, and she wrapped her hand around the cold bottle, letting the condensation trickle over her fingers. He handed Santos her vodka soda and then sat next to Mel in the booth, his whole body warm next to hers. It might have been pleasant, except the entire bar was sweltering. Mel had already taken off her cardigan, her shoulders feeling bare and exposed.

“What took you so long, were you— shit.” Santos swore, her eyes focused somewhere over Mel’s shoulder. “Robby is here." Mel turned to look, and saw Langdon and Garcia trickling in after him. 

“What are they doing here?” Santos sipped her drink and stared openly.

Tyler shrugged. “I mean, we picked the closest spot to the hotel. They probably did the same thing.”

Garcia spotted them first, and gave their table a casual wave. Santos flushed and slid down a little in her seat.

“It’s fine,” Mel told her, and sipped her cider. “What’s wrong with them being here?”

“Nothing,” Santos mumbled into her drink. “Absolutely nothing.”

From all Mel could tell, that was the truth, because twenty minutes later Garcia was approaching their table with a handful of shots.

“Those two aren’t drinking,” she told them, flicking her head to where Langdon and Robby were buried in conversation. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.” Santos’s tone was cool, but her cheeks were bright red as she slid over to make room. Mel politely declined her shot when Garcia went to hand it to her.

“Not a tequila girl, Dr. King?” She raised an eyebrow, but obligingly handed it to Santos so she could take two.

“Something like that.” She pressed her lips together and tangled her fingers under the table. “Call me Mel, please.”

“Sure.” Garcia nodded and then the three of them clinked their plastic glasses together, knocking the shots back. Mel took the opportunity to look at Langdon across the bar— he was speaking passionately, his brows drawn intensely. Robby had his head in his hands.

“Oof, that doesn’t look good,” Tyler said, following Mel’s line of sight. “What’s the deal over there?”

Garcia and Mel both stiffened— even Santos seemed to tighten up a little bit. “Just a little disagreement,” Garcia told him. “Probably about sports teams. Robby’s a big fan of the Ravens and it tends to cause issues.”

Her tone didn’t invite more questions, and Mel was a little grateful that none of them were keen to gossip about Langdon and Robby. It felt like the same policy her family had about their problems at home growing up— what happened in the house stayed in the house, no matter what. Tyler smiled mildly. 

“Didn’t I hear you say you knew someone who mentored Robby?” Mel asked, and he eagerly took the bait, launching into an explanation of the aforementioned Dr. Agarwal in Boston. Everyone relaxed infinitesimally.

From there, the night unwound a bit. Mel had two more ciders, and Santos and Garcia got drunker and drunker until they were leaning against each other in the booth, their sentences half-audible. Mel wondered if they’d even noticed the way their shoulders were pressed together, a red flush creeping up Santos’s neck. There was a lot of laughing and trading old stories and at some point, Mel became aware of Tyler’s arm stretched out on the back of the booth behind her head.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she excused herself. When she stood, Garcia visibly ran her eyes down Mel’s frame. The tank top had ridden up again.

“Damn, King, who knew you had hips like that?”

“I did!” Trinity pointed a finger at herself, hiccuping a little. “I’m the one that dressed her.”

Mel was equal parts flattered and mortified. She looked at Tyler, and he was very respectfully keeping his eyes on her face, though he looked amused. Mel folded her arms around her middle and scurried quickly to the bathroom.

In the scratched, graffitied mirror, Mel inspected her appearance while she washed her hands. Her hair wasn’t down around her face anymore— it was so hot in the bar that she’d secured it instead in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, although strands were escaping and drifting around her face. She still looked flushed and not quite like herself, but in a way she had to admit she kind of liked. 

When she stepped back out of the bathroom, she ran smack into someone’s chest.

“Woah, sorry,” the person said. Two hands closed around Mel’s elbows to steady her, and she moved to take a step back that wasn’t possible in the too-tight hallway until she glanced up and realized it was Langdon.

His eyes ran down her face, then to her exposed clavicle, catching slightly around what looked to be the neckline of her shirt before they darted back up to her face. “You okay?”

Mel nodded. “Are you?”

“I’m fine. Why?”

“It looked like you and Robby were having an argument, or something.” Thinking better of the words the minute they left her lips, Mel cleared her throat. Langdon’s hands were still clasped gently around her elbows, and they squeezed a little.  “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

His smile shrank. “You saw that, huh?” His eyes flicked to the ceiling, like he was pondering what to say next. “It’s nothing new. We’ve been having the same conversation for a year and a half. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Mel nodded and studied his face, so close. The bar was loud, rock music trailing from a speaker that must have been somewhere near their heads. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.” Langdon’s lips quirked wryly. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to hit the head. You should get back to your date.”

Before she could say anything, he had ducked into the men’s room. Mel’s frown deepened.

When she returned to the table, Tyler was sitting alone. She turned and saw Garcia and Santos at the bar, still leaning on each other conspiratorially. Garcia’s hand was on the small of Santos’s back, and Trinity was saying something that made her throw her head back in laughter. 

“Those two are having fun,” Tyler commented.

“Yes,” Mel agreed, although she wasn’t quite sure what to make of their closeness. She slid into the seat across from him, grateful to have some personal space. “Are you?”

He shrugged, rolling his Coors bottle between his hands. “I’m having a nice time, sure.” Tyler studied her. “Can I be candid with you about something?”

A brief second of panic fluttered inside of Mel, but she nodded.

He leaned in a little bit. “Trinity is trying to set us up. I know you know that. I appreciate it, and I do think you’re beautiful and smart and someone I’d like to get to know better, but I don’t think you’re very interested in me.” He paused. “Are you?”

“Not really.” The honest words were out of Mel’s mouth before she could come up with a graceful way to say them. She flushed, but Tyler laughed good-naturedly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You’re very sweet, and”— she waved a hand at his face—”good looking, of course. I loved what you had to say about sepsis and neurological biomarkers in your talk today, and would love to find out more about it, but I’m not looking for anything else.”

She was wildly grateful for the opportunity to be honest. So, it seemed, was Tyler. His smile was the brightest she’d seen it all weekend. “Well, thank God we said it now and didn’t force ourselves through any more small talk.” That made Mel laugh loudly, covering her mouth with her hand. 

He was still smiling kindly at her. “I would like to see you again, though. As friends, if that’s okay.”

Mel grinned. “I would like that, too.”

Ten minutes later, after putting her number very platonically into Tyler’s phone, Mel freed herself from the bar. The night had become frigid while she was inside, and Santos’s thin cardigan did nothing as Mel wrapped it tightly over herself and walked out into the parking lot.

“Heading out?”

She jumped at the voice. It was Langdon, leaning casually against the wall. He looked devastatingly beautiful, washed in the white light of the streetlamp. It cut his jaw and shone against his dark hair, his eyes shadowy as he looked at Mel.

“Time for me to go back to the hotel, I think.” She took a step closer and her eyes snagged on the unlit cigarette in his hand. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t.” He inspected the thing in his hand. “It’s stupid. I bummed it off the bartender without even realizing I didn’t have a light. I just thought it might take the edge off.”

Mel nodded, though she didn’t quite understand. She held her palm out, wiggling her fingers, and Langdon handed her the cigarette without hesitation. There wasn’t a trash can nearby, so she wedged it into her jeans pocket and out of sight. 

“Do you want to go get food with me?” She wasn’t quite sure where the idea had come from, but the moment she said it, she felt ravenous. Without hesitation, Langdon nodded.

They found a pizza spot a few blocks down from the bar. It was loud and overly crowded with drunk people, but Langdon bravely shouldered his way through the line and managed to get a few slices so they could eat while wandering the streets. For a long while, neither of them spoke, the air permeated only by the sound of other people chatting and the occasional blur of music streaming from an open car window as it passed.

They reached the main road to cross to get to the hotel, but Langdon paused. “Do you want to keep walking?”

“And go where?”

He jerked his head in the general direction of the ocean. “We could go to the piers.”

“Don’t they close at night?”

“Only one way to find out.” Langdon’s smile was sneaky, and he turned down the sidewalk. Like he knew she would, Mel followed.

She found herself knocking her knee against Langdon’s as they sat on a tall wall overlooking the docks. Hundreds of boats lined up neatly in the water, and Mel took a second to soak in the peaceful sound of water lapping against their sides and the occasional hollow noise of a boat brushing up against the dock. The ocean beyond it was beautiful, streaked with city lights, somehow both ominous and comforting.

“Want to go for a swim?”

Mel’s head jerked toward Langdon, but he was smiling. “I’m kidding.”

“Oh.” Mel let her lips tug up into a matching smile, her cheeks warm.  “No, thanks.” 

“So,” he began, turning his face towards the water. “Tyler, huh?”

“What about Tyler?” Mel swallowed and tucked her fingers into the sleeves of her cardigan.

“I mean, I get it. He’s obviously a smart dude, very put-together. He kind of looks like he could be related to a Kennedy.” Langdon shrugged. “I bet he’s secretly an asshole, though.”

Mel felt a little defensive of her new friend. “He’s not an asshole. Tyler’s really sweet.”

“Even the world’s biggest asshole would have a hard time being one to you.” Langdon let out a crude laugh. “Trust me, it takes one to know one.”

“You’re not one, either, Frank.” Mel’s voice was quiet, but she knew he heard from the way he stilled a little. 

“That’s not what Robby said.”

Now it was Mel who froze. “At the bar?”

Langdon nodded. “We shouldn’t have even gone. I don’t drink anymore and Robby seemed like he wanted to be anywhere else, but Garcia was pushy and so we went. Robby was mad at me already.”

The second part of it went unspoken. Robby had been mad at Langdon for a very, very long time.

“I didn’t mean to start a fight. It’s just— you know how I get. I’ve been trying to make amends with everyone I hurt, and Robby’s been the hardest.” He ducked his head, scrubbing his hand over his neck. “It’s part of my program.”

Mel nodded. He’d apologized to her months ago, pulling her aside after a shift to say that he was sorry for his behavior on her very first day, and for any longer impacts it had on her. Mel didn’t really feel like he had done anything to her personally, but she had accepted his apology and he’d given her a hug after— brief, a quick squeeze of his arms around her shoulders, her face in his neck. Still, she’d felt like his touch lingered for days afterward.

“Robby won’t accept your amends?” Mel’s voice sounded wounded as she tried to picture Robby doing something like that.

“No, no, it’s not that. I think it’s on me. He said he accepted it, but he’s obviously still upset with me, and I’m supposed to be able to leave it alone but I can’t. I want us to be how we were before, but that’ll never happen.” She saw his hands tightened on the wall. “Hell, we haven’t even gone back to how we were before Adamson died. He won’t even speak to me outside of necessary stuff at work, and he used to be my best friend.” 

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Mel said, her voice tight in a way she hadn’t expected. “It’s been a year and a half since you came back to the hospital. You go to meetings, you do locker checks, you do random drug tests. How many hoops is he going to make you jump through before he trusts you again?”

Langdon winced. “I’m not sure. But it’s not his fault, Mel. It’s mine. What I did was so, so fucked up. I didn’t even go to rehab for the right reasons at first, I just looked at it as a means to an end to get back to work as soon as possible. Robby has every right to be pissed at me. I just wish he wasn’t.”

Mel shivered hard as a breeze blew against their backs, and Langdon jerked his head over to look at her as if he was just remembering where they were.

“Jesus, Mel, you must be freezing.” In seconds, he was unzipping his sweatshirt and sliding closer on the wall to wrap it around her. He smoothed his hands up and down her arms, and Mel felt herself relax immediately. “That sweater doesn’t seem very warm.”

“It’s not.” She focused hard on not letting her teeth chatter as Langdon’s body heat seeped into her. “It’s Trinity’s. She picked out my outfit tonight.”

He let out an incredulous laugh. “Are you serious?”

Mel nodded. “She came over to my room after dinner. She even did my makeup.”

Langdon leaned back and studied her face intently, like he was trying to trace what might be different about it. “I can’t even tell. But earlier tonight, you did look—” He clamped his mouth shut and didn’t finish the sentence.

“I looked...?” she prodded.

“Nice. You looked nice.” His hands were still broad over her shoulders, and he slipped them off, a loss that Mel mourned instantly. “I bet Tyler liked it, too.”

Mel nudged her shoulder into his chest. “You keep bringing him up. What, are you jealous?”  She laughed, but Langdon didn’t, his face strangely serious. Her laughter stopped, and she cleared her throat. “Nothing happened with Tyler. I know Santos was excited about it, and I think he might have been interested at first, but I really wasn’t. He was very nice about it, and we’re friends now.”

“You weren’t interested in that guy?” His tone was quiet.

Mel shook her head. “No. Not my type.” She realized immediately that she might have accidentally opened the can of worms of what was her type— blue eyes, dark hair, chin dimple. But Langdon didn’t ask.

“You let Santos set you up with him anyway,” he pointed out.

Mel glanced at him inquisitively, not sure why he was still pressing the issue. “I thought it might be fun.” She paused, then said the truth. “It might have been selfish, actually. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t interested in him and I still let her do it just because I liked that she was so excited about it, and that meant she wanted to spend time with me.”

She realized immediately that it was too vulnerable. Langdon didn’t need to hear a sob story about how desperate Mel was for human connection. 

“You’re not selfish, Mel. You could never be.” His voice softened impossibly more, his gaze tracing over her face in an expression she couldn’t read.

“Oh, trust me,” she breathed out, and caught her eyes flickering to his mouth. “I’m plenty selfish.”

She realized, distantly, that the space between them had shrunk. Her shoulder was now pressed firmly into Langdon’s side, his nose inches from hers. She could feel his breath ghosting across her chin. 

She leaned in. Maybe he did too. She felt the ghost of his hand on her lower back, the tip of his nose brushing hers—

A car horn sounded from the parking lot.

They both jerked hurriedly away from each other. Mel did it so fast that she nearly fell off the wall, waving her arms so she’d stay balanced. 

“It’s late. I should get you to bed,” Langdon said, then coughed. “I mean, back to the hotel.”

“Right.” Mel’s face was on fire. 

Langdon pushed himself off the ledge, his feet crunching into gravel, and then even though it was only a few feet to jump, reached up to help Mel. His hands were strong and firm as she slid down, and they accidentally picked up the sweatshirt with it. His fingers skimmed her bare waist and he pulled them away quickly, mumbling an apology. If possible, Mel flushed more.

The walk back to the hotel was pretty quiet. Mel wrapped herself up in his sweatshirt, relishing in the heavy fabric and the way it smelled woodsy and comforting. She tried to memorize the sensation, even when her nose filled instead with the scent of the hotel lobby.

In the elevator, Langdon took a breath like he was going to speak, but stopped himself. In the mirrored doors, Mel watched him curiously. She’d never wanted to know so badly what someone else was thinking.

He walked her down the hall towards her door— his was only a few feet away. Mel’s heart had already begun to hurt at the thought of saying goodnight, watching him disappear and knowing she might never have another moment like this with him again.

She slowly began to unzip the sweatshirt. “Here, you can have this back. Thanks for lending it to me.” 

Langdon was already waving his hand dismissively. “You can just give it back to me tomorrow, if you want.”

Her hands paused. “Okay.” 

They lingered for another moment, both silent and studying the other. Her lungs felt heavy in her chest as she examined his eyes, focused somewhere near her chin. “Well,” Langdon smiled a private smile. “I’ll let you get to sleep. Goodnight, Mel.”

It had been a hazy night. Mel was tired, the lines felt fuzzy and unclear as she looked at him and he looked at her.

“Goodnight,” Mel said, then surged onto her tiptoes to kiss him.

Langdon made a surprised sound against her mouth. It took him a second, but then his hands were on her waist, his lips parting beneath hers. His tongue brushed at her lip and she let it in, sweeping one hand into his hair.

He took a step and pushed her up against the door, until he had her completely surrounded with LangdonLangdonLangdon. She was pretty certain she was half-gasping into his mouth as he kissed her deeper, tilting her chin back so he could suck on her bottom lip.

The elevator let out a beep from around the corner, and they both froze, realizing that they were still very much in a public hallway. Mel’s eyes widened and Langdon’s hands slackened on her hips. She fumbled in her pocket for the hotel key and turned around in Langdon’s embrace, enjoying the way he let his hands slide around her waist until he was gripping her from behind as she unlocked the door. 

In seconds, they were safely inside with the door shut and they had resumed their activities. Langdon pushed her up against the wall, and then the dresser, and then the bed. It was only when they were on the sheets with his hands halfway up Mel’s shirt that he stopped them. 

“What are we doing?”

Mel’s lips paused where they were pressed against his neck. She pulled back, looking at him from where he hovered over her. In this position, she had an incredible view of his biceps, braced on either side of her head.

“I think you know what we’re doing, Langdon.” She frowned. “Unless you’re not interested, which is totally fine, I just—” She began to push herself up and out from underneath him, but Langdon was protesting immediately, using one hand to push her shoulder back down and underneath him. She went easily.

“No, no, Mel, of course, I want this.” He skimmed his thumb delicately over her cheekbone. “Do you?”

Mel nodded and kissed him again, pushing up against him until they were both sitting up and she was lifting his shirt over his head. Her hands ran greedily over his chest, his shoulders, his back, as he hitched one of her legs up and over his waist. He began to kiss down her neck, having long ago divested her of both his sweatshirt and Trinity’s cardigan.

“This tank top,” he muttered, hooking a finger underneath one of the straps and tugging it down her shoulder, “was driving me crazy all night.”

“I was hoping you would like it,” Mel murmured, her eyes closing in pleasure when he slipped his palm up and over her breast. Langdon groaned and bit down lightly on her shoulder.

“Are you on the pill?” 

“IUD.” Her voice was nearly unrecognizable, as breathy as it was. “Do you have a condom?”

“There’s one in my wallet.” He pressed a kiss to the spot below her ear and lifted himself off the bed, and Mel let out an unfamiliar whine at his absence. “You’re sure about this?”

She waited until he had climbed back onto the bed and wrapped an arm around her waist to respond. “Frank, be quiet,” she mumbled against his lips. “Let me be selfish tonight.”

He nodded eagerly, and reached for the button of her jeans.

 

 

When she woke up in the very early hours of the morning, she was half-naked and tangled in Langdon’s arms. This part had always seemed wildly unappealing to Mel— she liked being held, but not while sticky and sweaty. To her surprise, it wasn’t as bad as she thought. Langdon’s breaths were gentle, ruffling against her hair as she turned over in his grasp to look at him. He’d shrugged his boxer-briefs back on after their final round, but his chest was still bare, and she traced a finger absentmindedly over a constellation of freckles on his shoulder. 

Still tired, and secretly thrilled at the knowledge that she still had a few more hours in his arms, Mel nestled her face back into the pillow and his chest, soaking in the pleasant way his grip tightened around her waist and held her closer even in his sleep. She drifted back to sleep like that, floating between the paradise of reality and the peace of her dreams.

When she woke up again, a few hours later from the way the sun streamed in through the curtains, Langdon was awake. She slowly brought a hand up to rub the sleep from her eyes, the backs of her knuckles brushing against his jaw as she did so. He smiled sleepily at her, his eyes half-cracked open.

“Hi.” Even in single syllables, his voice was raspy enough that it sent a pleasant tingle up Mel’s spine.

“Hi.” 

He leaned in to kiss her, but she squirmed away from him. “Morning breath,” she complained, wriggling all the way out of his grasp. He groaned and reached his hands after her, grasping at empty sheets.

“Come on, Mel, I don’t care.”

“Well, I do.” She grinned and slipped from the bed, grabbing Frank’s sweatshirt from the floor and zipping it up over herself as she moved toward the bathroom. She stopped when she saw herself in the mirror. “Oh, jeez,” she mumbled to herself. “Is that what I look like right now?”

Her hair was disastrously mussed, sticking up in places where she remembered Frank pulling his fingers through it only hours before. Her lips were swollen, and there, just peeking out from the edge of where she’d zipped the sweatshirt, was a purplish bruise.

“You gave me a hickey?” She pulled the sweatshirt to the side and gaped in surprise.

“What? No, I didn’t.” Frank’s voice was muffled, like he’d dug his face back into the pillows. 

Mel laughed a little and dug through her toiletry bag until she unearthed her toothbrush. After a moment of brushing, she heard footsteps on the carpet and then Langdon was appearing behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her into his chest. He tucked her hair behind her ear, delicately scraping his fingers on the skin there in a way that made her shiver, and leaned in to press kisses to the slope of her neck, her shoulder.

When she was finished with the sink, Langdon took some of her toothpaste on his finger and scrubbed his teeth. It shouldn’t have been charming, but Mel could have watched hours of him baring his teeth in the mirror. As he did it, she hooked two fingers under the sweatshirt and pulled it to the side so he could see the mark he’d left on her chest.

His eyes widened almost comically, a little foam collecting on the edges of his mouth. He spat into the sink. “No way.”

“Yes way.” Mel felt like her cheeks might split in half from her smile, and reminded herself to tone it down a little bit. “You’re lucky I’ve packed some very conservative outfits for the rest of the trip.”

“Well, that’s a shame.” Frank backed her into the counter and lifted her up onto it, stepping close so that he was standing in between her spread legs. “I was hoping to see you wear that top from last night again.” 

She wove her hands behind his neck, tangling one in his thick hair. His eyelids fluttered a little in pleasure, and his hand found a spot on her hip, tracing over the cotton of her underwear.

“That could probably be arranged,” Mel murmured, and then he kissed her.

They might have spent forever like that. She hooked one leg around his back, pulling him into her as she enjoyed the delicious drag of his skin against hers, his mouth tugging at hers. 

“I should probably shower,” she told him eventually, even as his hand slid underneath the sweatshirt and up the column of her spine.

“Great idea.” He nipped at her shoulder with his teeth. “I could join you.”

“Langdon.” She meant for his name to sound sturdy, but it came out more like a moan. “You’re an emergency medicine doctor. I know that you did not just suggest shower sex to me.”

At that, Langdon laughed into her skin. Not even a month ago, they’d treated a woman who had broken her shoulder while having sex in the shower. That was not a risk Mel was willing to take.

“Okay,” he conceded. “Then shower after.”

Mel’s lips curled into a smile. “After what?”

Langdon dropped to his knees.

He was only halfway up her legs, pressing worshipping kisses to the insides of her calves, her knees, her thighs, when someone began to pound on the door. Mel flinched so hard at the sound that she narrowly avoided smacking her head on the mirror behind her head.

Langdon flew to his feet. “Who is that?” 

“I don’t know,” Mel hissed, panicked. She pushed herself off the counter and scrambled back into the room, shoving a pair of abandoned pajama shorts up her hips. 

“Mel? Are you in there?” A voice called through the door. “I need to talk to you.”

Frank’s face reminded Mel of times when her mother would say if looks could kill. “Is that Santos?” He kept his voice low as he followed Mel into the room. She chucked his jeans at his head. 

“I don’t know what she’s doing here,” Mel told him, “but you need to hide.”

The insistent knocking sounded again. “Mel? Are you awake?”

“What do you mean, hide?” Frank looked hysterical, casting his eyes around the room. “Where, under the bed?”

“No, in the bathroom!” Mel used both her hands to push him towards the en-suite. He went easily, still satisfyingly pliant under her hands. “I’ll find out what she wants, and then get rid of her as soon as I can,” she said in a low voice. Santos continued to knock on the door. “I’ll tell her I need coffee, or something, and we’ll get out of here so you can sneak out. Just stay quiet, okay?”

Langdon screwed his mouth up, obviously not happy with this solution, but let Mel shut the door in his face. She took a single, bracing breath before she turned and opened the door to the hallway, where Santos’s fist was still raised to knock.

“There you are! Jesus, I was beginning to think you were in a coma in there or something.” Without asking, Trinity breezed into the room.

Mel trailed behind her, realizing belatedly that she hadn’t done a single thing to conceal the presence of another person in the room. There were two glasses of water on the nightstand. Frank’s t-shirt from the night before was somehow tangled around the legs of the desk and his phone poked out from underneath the sheets. Mel sat quickly on the bed and used her elbow to shove it out of sight.

Santos cast a glance around at Mel’s jeans, discarded on the floor with the cardigan next to them. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice Frank’s shoes, haphazardly kicked off near the door. “Did you get in late, or something?”

“Yeah,” Mel forced a smile, hoping her face didn’t convey her panic. Her pulse still thrashed in her ears. “I was so tired, I didn’t clean up last night.”

Santos made a face, clearly judging her a little, but took a seat on the bed across from Mel. “Whatever.” She physically waved the comment away with her hand. “Sorry to barge in on you. I tried to get Tyler, but he’s not answering his phone this morning, and I need to talk to someone.”

“That’s okay. If you want, we can probably talk outside—”

“Mel, I’m serious. I need to talk to you,” Santos interrupted.

“Are you okay?” Immediately, Mel’s panic slipped easily to concern. She scanned Trinity’s body, but nothing seemed amiss— nothing obviously wrong, at least.

Santos began to wring her hands in a move that Mel was very familiar with. “Something happened last night.”

Mel waited for her to keep speaking, but she didn’t. “Do you want to tell me what it was?” She kept her voice soft, delicate.

Santos took a deep breath. “You have to promise you won’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t tell anyone what you tell me, as long as you’re not hurt or going to hurt someone else.” The words were automatic, the same promise she’d made in the hospital hundreds of times.

“No, no, chill out, it’s nothing like that.” Santos waved her hand dismissively again, but then buried her face in her palms. “I did something bad.”

“What did you do?”

Trinity let out a string of words, but Mel couldn’t make any of them out. Slowly, she reached out and grabbed Santos’s hand, pulling it away from her mouth. “What was that?”

“IfuckedGarcialastnight.”

“What?”

Santos glared at her. “I. Fucked. Garcia. Last. Night.”

Mel couldn’t help it. She gasped in shock.

“Mel!” Santos groaned and fell back against the pillows. Mel winced a little, remembering that they might still be damp from the night before, but Santos didn’t seem to notice. “That is absolutely not the response I needed you to have.”

“How did that even happen?” Mel was incredulous, although her mind flashed back to the image of Garcia’s hand, tracing shapes on the small of Santos’s back at the bar the night before.

“Well,” Santos pouted. “Everyone went home. And then it was just Garcia and I, and she was buying me drinks and complimenting my eyes and making up excuses to touch my hair and the next thing I knew she was finger-blasting me in the bathroom, okay?”

“Trinity!” Mel gasped even louder. She’d been accused of being prudish before, and never thought it was very true, but the way she clapped a hand over her disbelieving mouth seemed to suggest otherwise. “That cannot be sanitary.”

Santos ignored her. “So we came back to the hotel, and then we did it again, and then again. ”

Mel couldn’t help it. Her mind flickered to her own night, the sheets sliding against her thighs as Langdon pressed kisses to her stomach, trailing her underwear down her legs. She took a deep breath and determinedly fixed her eyes on Santos.

“Then, I woke up this morning,” she was saying. “And Garcia was gone. Not even a note. I stuck around for a while, because maybe she was just grabbing food or coffee or going for a run or something, but she never came back. It’s so bad, Mel.” She covered her face with her hands again. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to look at her again. I might just jump off the plane, to be honest.”

“Well, don’t do that. You’re shaping up to be one of our best residents.” Mel tried to keep her voice light-hearted.

It only made things worse. “Oh, God, I didn’t even think about work,” Santos cried. “I have to change rotations. This can’t be happening.”

“Trin, it’s going to be fine.” She placed what she hoped was a soothing hand on Santos’s forearm. “Maybe she really did go grab coffee. Or maybe she just needed space. I get like that, sometimes, especially with other people.”

Santos blinked at her. “Do you really think so?”

It was discombobulating to see cool, confident Trinity Santos losing it like this. Mel wasn’t really sure what to say, but she mustered her best impression of Kiara anyways. “I’m sure of it. Garcia’s an adult, and so are you— you can’t let this mess with your career. I would wait and see if you have a window later to talk about it, or just wait until we get back to Pittsburgh and handle it then.”

She nodded slowly, like it made sense. Then, before Mel could react, Trinity was throwing her arms around her and pulling her into a hug. “I just didn’t know what to do,” she confessed into Mel’s shoulder. “Thank you for listening to me. Genuinely.”

Mel wrapped an arm around Trinity’s shoulders, smiling softly into her apple-scented hair. Then the worst thing possible happened.

Something clattered in the bathroom. Everything inside of Mel went very, very still.

Santos looked at the shut door. She processed.

“Mel King, you dirty dog.” A slow grin stretched over her face. “Did you hook up with someone last night?”

Panic shot through her. “What? No.”

It was too late. Santos was looking down at her borrowed sweatshirt, and then catching sight of the shoes that certainly did not belong to Mel on the floor. Her eyes snagged, then, on the cups of water on the nightstand, and the destroyed sheets on the bed. Something exciting and strange flared in her eyes.

“I knew it.” She jumped off the bed and pointed a finger at Mel. “You went home with Tyler last night, didn’t you?”

“What?” Mel’s voice was pitched with alarm. “Trinity, no. That’s ridiculous.”

“He left right after you did, and he didn’t answer my texts this morning.” She was smirking, now, confident that she had sleuthed them out. Mel felt distantly like she was witnessing a car accident, except that she was the driver in both cars and also a pedestrian on the street. “Tyler!”

“No, don’t—” Mel tried to stop her, but Santos was already banging on the bathroom door. 

It was one of the flimsy pocket doors that hotels liked to use, the kind that shivered and clattered in the frame as Santos beat her fist against it. “Tyler, you dickface, get out here. I can’t believe you didn’t text me back!”

No one responded. Mel grabbed for Trinity’s wrist— the pounding was starting to give her a headache. “Stop it, please.”

“Why won’t he come out?” Santos frowned. “Tyler, come on. I know you’re in there. The jig is up, or whatever, stop being an idiot.”

Still, there was silence on the other side of the door. Santos narrowed her eyes at it, as if still trying to figure something out. She turned back to Mel, glancing again at the sweatshirt. Mel hadn’t looked very closely at it the night before, but she knew which one it was. It was Langdon’s favorite, the Pittsburgh Penguins one with Crosby’s name across the back. He wore it all the time. 

“Mel,” Santos said slowly. “Tell me that sweatshirt doesn’t belong to who I think it does.”

Mel swallowed. She didn’t say anything.

Santos’s face tightened. She hit the door again, one sharp beat of her fist that made Mel flinch hard. “Langdon? Get out here. Now.”

There was the sound of the lock turning, and the door sliding open, and then there was Frank Langdon in only his jeans. 

“What the fuck,” Santos said. Her cheeks had turned a furious pink. “Mel, what the fuck. What is he doing here?”

“You know what he’s doing here.” Mel’s voice sounded small in her ears.

Santos looked repulsed. “Ew! What the fuck!”

“It’s not any worse than you sleeping with Garcia!” Mel exclaimed defensively, feeling flustered. 

“Yes, it is, because it’s Langdon!” Santos pointed an accusing finger at him. He rolled his eyes.

“Oh, grow up, Santos. We’re all adults here, or at least Mel and I are.” He sneered at her and pushed past the both of them into the room, leaning over to grab his discarded t-shirt from the ground. 

“What the fuck,” Santos said again. When Mel tore her eyes from Frank, she saw that Trinity had caught sight of the hickey poking out from Mel’s hoodie. She flushed with embarrassment and zipped it up hurriedly, but the damage had been done.

“How could you do this,” Trinity said accusingly to Frank. “Mel isn’t just some random chick you can sleep with at a conference, you know.”

“Of course, I know.” Frank sounded angry. “It’s not like you and Yolanda.”

Lines of furious steam were practically radiating from Santos’s body. “You shouldn’t know about that. Mel, I can’t believe you let him hear that.”

“I didn’t know! How on Earth was I supposed to know that you’d come in and tell me that,” Mel responded. “I didn’t even know he’d be there this morning. It’s not like I planned any of this.” Her words were flying out of her so quickly, she wasn’t even sure anyone could understand them. 

With the way Santos and Langdon were staring at each other, it was like they hadn’t  even heard her. “How dare you. You know how she feels about you, and yet you did this?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Frank’s eyes were burning, practically aflame. Mel hadn’t seen him this mad in a very, very long time, and she found herself shrinking towards the wall. “You don’t have a clue how I feel about her.”

“I have a clue about lots of things,” Santos bit back. “I knew you were a shitty guy, Langdon, but I didn’t think even you would stoop this low. Taking advantage of Mel like this? And for what? A quick fuck? Was your hand not good enough? What, you had a bad night and needed to drag her down with you?”

Her words hit Mel in the stomach like rocks. Was having sex with her stooping low for Langdon? Suddenly, it seemed that way.

“Don’t talk about her like that.” His words snapped through the air. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re the only one in the room speaking poorly of Mel, and I would cut it out if I were you.”

“I’m only looking out for her. Mel is my friend.” Santos had her arms crossed defensively, and she practically stepped in front of Mel, who was now fully hunched against the wall. “This is completely out of line.”

“What, are you going to run to Robby and snitch again?”

Langdon seemed to regret the words the moment he said them. His sneer fell from his face, wiped clean and replaced by something deeply awful. The whole room froze. Santos straightened up, but her voice didn’t seem to work. Her mouth flapped a few times.

Mel took the silence as her chance to speak, although it took several tries. She realized her throat was clogged with tears. When had she begun to cry?

“Can you both leave, please?”

It was like neither of them had realized she was still there. Both their faces softened with something like pity when they turned to face Mel, whose cheeks were streaked with tears. 

“Mel, I’m sorry, I just—” Trinity stopped speaking when Mel held out a hand.

“Please.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I want you both to go, now.”

Frank looked like he’d been struck across the face. He took a step toward her. “Mel, sweetheart, I—” Mel made eye contact with him, and he cut himself off too, swallowing. He nodded and started to look around for his shoes. 

Santos looked stricken. She apologized again, her eyes wide before she flew from the room. Langdon paused by Mel, his hand reaching out for her, but she leaned away from the touch. Loud, cyclical sirens were beaming around in her head. She felt like an idiot.

“I’ll come find you later, if that’s okay,” he murmured softly, moving out into the hall. That same woodsy, soothing scent brushed against her as he passed, and more tears fell from Mel’s eyes.

When the door shut behind him, Mel crumpled to the floor and began to cry.

 

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring at the water, but it had been a long time. There wasn’t much of a beach behind the hotel, but the back terrace dropped out onto more of the same rows and rows of docks that she and Langdon had sat in front of last night. After she’d showered, numbly washing her hair and her body with the hotel soap, she’d found herself down there, both knees tucked to her chest as she peered out into the horizon.

The weather did not match her mood. The sky was a gorgeous cornflower blue, cloudless and sunny. Below her, gentle waves beat against the boats, and the docks were chattering with people she imagined were fishermen and tourists going whale-watching. She remembered, vaguely, trying to make plans with Santos at the bar to end up on one of those boats before they got on the plane this evening. That felt like it had been a lifetime ago.

Thinking of Santos made her eyes sting again, the lump in her throat big and painful. That morning, she’d been wrapped in Langdon’s arms, feeling the scrape of his stubble on her bare shoulder. That morning, she’d heard that she was probably nothing more than just some conference hook up. A replacement for Langdon’s hand, Santos had said.

She’d calmed down a little, replaying the conversation in her head. It still felt like there was a wound twisting deep inside of her, but when she thought critically, she could remember that Langdon had defended her. That he had said Santos had no idea how he felt about Mel— not even Mel knew how he felt about her. She thought she never would.

What was hurting the most, Mel thought, was that they’d crossed the point of no return. How were she and Langdon supposed to have a normal working relationship after this? Would she have to stop bringing extra cups of yogurt to work because he never packed a snack? Would he stop offering to drive her to the center on days where it was raining hard and she was too anxious to get on the road?

There was the scrape of a chair next to her. “Hey, kiddo.”

She turned, and there was Robby with a plate of food in his hands. “We missed you at breakfast.”

She must have looked awful, because his eyes got impossibly kinder as he looked at her. He set the plate next to her. Mel didn’t say anything, just blinked at it.

She got like this sometimes. Her feelings were so big that she didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to move. She’d find somewhere to park herself and stare and feel the breeze move around her, until eventually she had to pee or got too hungry to stay still.

“Listen,” Robby leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. Something in the movement was familiar— she could pretend he was about to tell her something about a patient, or that she’d been triple-booked for double shifts. “I don’t know any specifics, but Langdon is sitting up there with his ‘I fucked up’ face. It’s a face I know well.”

Mel didn’t say anything. She turned back to face the water, even as something deep and painful throbbed in her chest. Langdon hadn’t fucked up. He’d stooped to be with her. Mel was the one who had messed up.

“I don’t know what he did, and frankly I don’t think I want to know. I probably need to have plausible deniability when we get back.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his forehead. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Mel still didn’t move. She wanted to, and she knew she should, but it felt like she was sheathed in concrete. Robby sat back for a second, staring out at the boats with her, before he said more.

“I won’t pry. But I do have to let you know that if we go back to the ED and I see that whatever went down here is impacting your work, or Langdon’s, or even Santos’s, I’m going to start asking some questions.” His tone was stern, but not unkind. Mel nodded again.

“You’re being too hard on him, you know.” Mel’s voice surprised even her as it warbled out, cracking and dry. “He’s putting in everything he can, day in and day out, and I think it’s killing him that you won’t forgive him.”

There was a long silence. Then, “I know.” Robby’s voice was a little gruff. “I’m working on it.” She knew him well enough to understand when his tone meant no other comments were welcome, so she held her tongue.

“Okay.” Mel tucked her chin onto her knee, feeling a little like a child struggling to talk to her father.

He sighed and began to stand. “I’m not going to make you come back to the hotel, but that lunch-and-learn thing starts in an hour and a half. If you want to skip, just make sure you’re in the lobby at 4 so we can head to the airport. Let me know if you need anything.”

She nodded again, waiting until his steps had fully retreated before fresh tears sprang to her eyes. She glanced at the plate he’d brought— a blueberry muffin and something that looked like a god-awful tofu scramble. Robby had even tucked a packet of salt and pepper onto the plate with the fork.

She didn’t touch it— her head hurt and her cheeks stung. Mel buried her face into her knees, listening to the faint sound of seagulls screeching and boats pulling through the water.

The chair next to her made a scraping sound again. 

“I’m okay, Robby, really,” Mel said, not bothering to look up. He’d seen her at her worst, smeared with blood and other people’s vomit at the hospital. He could see her crying.

“I’m not Robby.”

Mel’s head jerked up and she frantically wiped at her face. Langdon was sitting there, studying her with concern.

“Oh. Hi.” Mel’s voice was choked. “Sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?” His voice was soft, like he was trying not to startle her.

“All the crying.” Mel gestured to her face like it was self-explanatory. “I’ll stop. I’m fine.”

If possible, his brows drew closer together. He wasn’t very far from her— if Mel reached out, she could press a hand to his face. She shook away the sense-memory from the night before, his jaw underneath her palm as she slid it into his hair. Mel fastened her eyes back on the horizon and the boats. 

“I’m sorry about this morning,” Frank said. “It’s not how I thought it would go.”

“Me, neither.” She wondered what he meant by it, whether it was the same thing she meant.

“I talked to Santos. She owes you an apology.”

“Did you apologize to her?” Mel looked at him fixedly, not sure what emotion was reading on her face.

He nodded. “I did. Neither of us was very fair to each other this morning. And neither of us was very fair to you, either.”

“I’m fine.” Mel caught herself stuck on the blue swell of his eyes and turned her head again. It was hard to look at him and not remember the squinty lines near his cheeks when he smiled at her in bed that morning. 

“Are you?”

She nodded. A bird swooped overhead.

“Do you regret it?” In her peripheral vision, he was shifting in his seat, fidgeting with his hands. “Last night?”

“No.” Mel shut her eyes. “Yes. I don’t know. Do you?”

“I don’t think so,” Langdon said. They were both quiet for a long while.

“It’s my fault. I’m not a casual person,” Mel eventually blurted out. “I shouldn’t have just kissed you spontaneously last night. I know we went into it with completely different expectations, and I’m normally just so careful about these things.” Frustrated tears began to pool in her eyes. “We should have talked about it first. I know we should’ve.”

The chair made that unpleasant noise again as Frank pulled up closer to her, his knee brushing her thigh. Carefully, his hand pressed to her shoulder blade. The pressure was soothing, and his hand was warm, and Mel felt herself both shiver and relax.

“Then let’s talk about it.”

She turned to look at him. His expression was uncomplicated, his brow now clear. Mortifyingly, Mel sniffled a little. His hand drew reassuring circles on her back. 

“What did you think my expectations were, last night?” 

“I don’t know.” Embarrassment pooled in her stomach. “It’s what Santos said, right? Everyone hooks up at conferences.”

“Right, but I never have. I’m willing to guess you never have, either.” 

Mel shook her head.

“The stuff she said was awful, and Santos will tell you that herself when you see her, and none of it was true. She made a lot of assumptions about me in that moment and”—Frank drew in a big breath—“it seems that you’ve made the same conclusions. Do you actually think last night was just some meaningless hookup for me?”

She swallowed, but didn’t say anything.

“Mel.” He groaned and scraped his free hand over his mouth. “Mel. Come on. Tell me you don’t think that.”

“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to think,” Mel said, exasperated. Her face was flushing with embarrassment and a hint of anger, now. “You’re not exactly clearing things up, you know. I wish you’d stop asking me vague questions and just tell me what you’re thinking.” She regretted her assertiveness immediately, but Frank straightened, his expression changing.

“I don’t want to be casual, is what I’m thinking.” 

Mel’s head whipped to look at him in disbelief.

He went on. “Mel, listen. My life is a mess. It’s never not been a mess. I have kids, and I’ve only been single for a year and a half, and I’m a freak workaholic doctor who stole meds from patients.” Mel opened her mouth to interrupt, but he soldiered on. “But I think about you all the time. You’re the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night. I could be having the worst fucking shift in the world, and then I’ll see a note you wrote in a chart and it’ll make me feel a little better. Jesus, that’s embarrassing to admit out loud.”

“Langdon,” Mel said, but her voice faltered.

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m not trying to put you in a shitty position.” He sighed and rolled his hands over his knees. “I just think I’d be a fucking idiot if I didn’t tell you how I felt right now, Mel.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t even certain if she had actually made a sound, or if her lips had just parted to let air out.

She didn’t think she’d ever heard him say so many words all at once. Despite that, he kept going. “The ball is in your court, okay? We could go back to Pittsburgh and never talk about this again. Or,” he swallowed. “Or we could talk about it.”

“I want to do that. I want to talk about it,” Mel croaked. Her hand fumbled for his and he grabbed on tight, his expression melting into relief.

“You do?”

Mel nodded, then kissed him. She sighed in happy consolation as his mouth parted eagerly under hers. He tasted a little like stale coffee, but somehow, she liked it.

When they pulled away, their knees had slotted between each other, Langdon’s hand wrapped around the back of Mel’s neck. His thumb stroked the skin behind her ear.

“I don’t want to mess this up,” she confessed. “I really, really don’t want to mess this up.”

“So we’ll be careful,” Langdon said. “Admittedly, I don’t have a lot of experience being careful, but I want to try.”

Mel laughed a little. “I’m very good at it. Sometimes, I’m too careful.”

“Trust me, Mel, I know,” Langdon said, and then kissed her again.

 

Santos pinned her in the doorway to the airplane bathroom.

Mel had been able to tell that Trinity had wanted to talk to her all day. She’d been glancing guiltily over at her for the whole duration of the farewell luncheon, and the shuttle to the airport, and the wait to board the plane. Apparently this was the best time to catch her— when Mel was pushing tiredly out of the plasticky doorway, feeling like her hands could never be clean enough from that soap.

“I need to apologize,” Santos blurted out.

Mel glanced around at the tiny space. “Here?”

“Yes.” Santos nodded determinedly and smoothed her hands down her shirt like she was about to begin a presentation. “I’m so, so sorry for what I said this morning. I was way out of line. I was so freaked out and also upset about my morning with Garcia, and I said a lot of things I didn't mean. I obviously don’t know anything about the nature of your relationship with Langdon, and I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m sorry.”

Mel smiled a little. “Okay. Thank you for apologizing. I forgive you.”

Santos blinked. “Really? Just like that?”

“I’m not very good at holding grudges,” Mel shrugged. Over Santos’s shoulder, a woman appeared to be needing the bathroom, so they did an awkward shuffle back out into the plane aisle. “Can I ask what happened between you and Gar—”

“Later,” Santos hissed, and nudged Mel with her elbow. She looked down and realized Garcia was only a few rows ahead. Giving Santos an apologetic look, she clamped her mouth shut until she returned to her seat, which was thankfully next to Langdon.

She’d spent the first half of the flight asleep with her face on his shoulder. He’d teased her a little about not sleeping the night before and she’d poked at him, annoyed, before drifting back off again. Now, as she sat down, he was looking at her with something eager in his eyes. 

“Hi,” Mel said.

“Hi,” he said back.

“Is something wrong?” She couldn’t read that weird look in his eyes.

“No, I have something for you.” He leaned forward and began to dig through his backpack. Mel leaned back in her seat, amused, until he withdrew with a small notebook in his hand. He marked the page with a finger and held it out to her.

“What is this?”

“You’ll see.” It was her favorite smile of his, private and warm.

She flipped the book open, and saw that both pages were crowded with Langdon’s cramped handwriting. Mel held it closer to her face. “What is this?”

“The notes from the triage panel you asked for.” Langdon smiled. “I also asked Dr. Victor and he said he could send me the recording of the talk so you could watch it yourself, but this is what I wrote down.”

“I forgot you said you’d do this,” Mel said, her voice embarrassingly pleased as she flipped through. There were four pages of notes, as detailed as she had ever seen Langdon write although hardly legible. “Thank you, Langdon.”

“Not bad for a slacker, huh?”

“I never called you a slacker.” Mel sighed happily and shut the notebook, smiling at Langdon. He reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Thank you.”

He pressed his lips to her temple. “No problem, sweetheart.” 

Grinning, Mel leaned in to his side, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You know, we should probably go to HR about this eventually. I don’t want to accidentally get in trouble with the hospital for fraternizing with a colleague.”

Frank groaned lowly, and it rumbled pleasantly below her ear. “Mel, I am on a first-name basis with the hospital HR reps. Please don’t make me think about having to deal with them before we get off this plane.”

“Okay,” Mel said. “Let’s watch something, then.”

She wasn’t sure when Santos got the chance to sneak it, but after Mel got home from the airport and curled up on the couch, her phone buzzed and there was a photo of her and Langdon on the screen. They were curled up in their seats, her face tucked into his neck and her hand in his. They were both asleep, faces relaxed but happy.

You guys are going to make me sick, the text read. Mel laughed, then leaned over to show it to Frank. 

Notes:

thank you for reading!! some notes:
- this was all loosely inspired by a single line in alrighty aphrodite by mr_charles. iykyk. go read it!
- mel being from michigan is not canon but i read it in a fic and cannot remember which one and it immediately became canon to me so.
- come hang with me on tumblr!