Work Text:
At 6:51 in the morning, Charge Nurse Dana Evans walked into the Pitt already in a bad mood.
Not a cute bad mood. Not an “ugh, Mondays” bad mood.
A biblical one.
The kind of mood cultivated only through decades of emergency medicine, chronic understaffing, two failed marriages, one successful blood pressure medication, and the knowledge that somewhere in the hospital a resident was absolutely putting a fork into the microwave.
She hadn’t even made it to the nurses station before she heard shouting from the ambulance bay.
“Sir, you cannot smoke in here!”
“I’m literally having chest pain!”
“And now you’re having chest pain with nicotine, congratulations!”
Dana didn’t even break stride. “Put him in Two. Get a troponin. Somebody confiscate the Marlboro Reds before Robby sees them and starts a public health lecture.”
A chorus of exhausted agreement followed her through the department.
The Pitt was already humming with the specific kind of chaos unique to emergency medicine. Phones ringing. Monitors alarming. Residents moving too fast because they still believed speed and competence were the same thing. The smell of burnt coffee and sanitizer and stress-induced gastrointestinal distress lingering in the air like a chemical weapon.
Business as usual.
Dana dropped her bag behind the desk, took one sip of coffee, and looked up just in time to see Dr. Frank Langdon walk in through the employee entrance looking profoundly, cosmically wrecked.
Langdon always looked a little disheveled. It was part of the whole tortured-E.R.-doctor aesthetic he had cultivated by accident through years of caffeine abuse and unresolved emotional damage. But today he looked especially bad.
Like he’d either:
A) not slept,
B) slept terribly,
or C) gotten laid within an inch of his life and then immediately regretted every decision he’d ever made.
Dana narrowed her eyes.
Then Mel King walked in behind him.
And there it was.
Jesus Christ.
It hit Dana instantly — the vibe. The atmosphere. The deeply irritating energetic frequency of two coworkers who had recently started sleeping together and now believed nobody could tell.
Unfortunately for them, Dana Evans had spent thirty years reading body language from psych patients, cheating husbands, and drunk college freshmen insisting they were “totally fine to drive.”
She could smell sexual tension the way sharks smelled blood.
Mel looked annoyingly radiant for someone clocking into a twelve-hour trauma shift. Langdon, meanwhile, took one look at her and visibly forgot how shoulders worked.
Dana clocked the matching hickeys immediately.
Not because they were especially visible.
Because Dana was a nurse.
Nurses noticed everything.
Tiny pupil changes. Wedding rings disappearing. Suspicious limping. Lipstick stains. Which employees suddenly started bringing homemade lunches because someone new was cooking for them.
She watched Langdon subconsciously reach for Mel’s elbow as she squeezed past a stretcher.
Watched Mel lean into him automatically before catching herself.
Watched the exact moment both of them realized Dana was staring.
“Oh no,” Langdon said quietly.
Dana took another sip of coffee.
“Frank,” she said, her voice dangerously calm, “if I find out you turned this emergency department into Grey’s Anatomy, I will personally push you into the Monongahela.”
Mel snorted.
Langdon looked offended. “That’s dramatic.”
“You have a handprint bruise on your neck.”
His hand flew to his throat.
Mel immediately looked away to hide a smile.
Dana closed her eyes briefly.
“Fantastic,” she muttered. “We’re starting early today.”
—
By 8:07 a.m., Dana had already broken up one argument in triage, confiscated an emotional support ferret, and watched a med student nearly pass out during a rectal exam.
And somehow none of that was the most embarrassing thing happening in the department.
That honor currently belonged to Samira Mohan and Jack Abbot.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Dana had suspected something was brewing there for weeks now. Not because either of them had said anything — both were deeply committed to pretending nothing was happening — but because they’d developed the kind of unbearable hyper-awareness usually seen in people moments before they either kissed or committed homicide.
Jack had started appearing wherever Mohan was like a nervous Victorian ghost.
Mohan had started getting meaner to him specifically.
Which, in Dana’s experience, was essentially foreplay.
At the moment, both of them were standing at the central desk reviewing scans while trying very hard not to stand too close together.
Unfortunately, the trying was somehow making it worse.
“Your note is incomplete,” Mohan said.
Jack frowned at the computer. “No it isn’t.”
“You forgot the blood pressure trend.”
“I literally charted it.”
“You charted one.”
“It was stable.”
“That’s not what trend means.”
Dana watched Jack lean over her shoulder to point at the monitor.
Watched Mohan freeze for half a second because he smelled good apparently.
Watched Jack realize she noticed.
Watched both of them short-circuit simultaneously.
Oh my God.
It was like supervising two sexually frustrated border collies.
Dana looked around for witnesses and unfortunately found Santos already watching the exchange with the delighted expression of a woman actively stirring shit in her own mind.
“You seeing this?” Santos whispered.
“I’m trying not to.”
“They’re absolutely gonna hook up in a supply closet by Thanksgiving.”
“Please never say that sentence to me again.”
Garcia appeared beside Santos carrying meds. “Who’s hooking up in a supply closet?”
Santos pointed subtly.
Garcia took one look at Jack and Mohan.
“Oh,” she said immediately. “Yeah.”
Across the desk, Mohan sighed sharply. “Can you stop hovering?”
“I’m not hovering.”
“You’re breathing directly on my neck.”
Jack blinked. “Sorry.”
He took one step backward and immediately walked into a rolling stool hard enough to nearly eat shit in front of the entire department.
Santos made a strangled noise trying not to laugh.
Mohan pressed her lips together so hard they disappeared.
Dana physically turned away because if she made eye contact with either of them she was going to start screaming.
—
At 9:43 a.m., Dana opened the staff lounge door and immediately backed back out.
Not because anything obscene was happening.
Technically.
But because Dr. Robby and Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi were standing approximately three inches apart having the kind of quiet, intense argument that only happens between two people who know each other far too well.
Baran had her arms crossed.
Robby looked exhausted in the specific way men looked when a woman had recently told them something devastatingly accurate about themselves.
Dana considered leaving.
Unfortunately, Robby noticed her.
“Dana,” he said, with the tone of a man begging to be rescued from his own life choices.
Baran didn’t even look over. “Don’t involve her.”
“I’m already involved,” Dana said flatly. “I opened the door and got hit with enough tension to power Cleveland.”
Neither of them denied it.
Which was honestly worse.
Robby scrubbed a hand over his face. “She’s mad because I skipped lunch.”
“You skipped lunch yesterday too,” Baran shot back.
“I was busy.”
“You were charting.”
“That is being busy.”
“You were reorganizing your patient lists by color.”
“That system helps me.”
Dana looked between them slowly.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You’re in a work-wife fight.”
“We are not—” Robby started.
Baran spoke over him at the exact same time.
“He’s impossible.”
Dana pointed at her immediately. “That was incredibly married of you.”
Baran looked horrified.
Robby looked smug for one suicidal second before Baran turned toward him with enough cold fury to lower the room temperature.
Dana held up both hands. “Nope. Whatever this is, keep it away from my nurses station. I already have King wandering around looking like she got dickmatized before sunrise.”
The silence that followed was catastrophic.
Robby choked on his coffee.
Baran physically turned away to laugh into her hand.
Dana realized too late what she’d said out loud.
“Well,” she muttered. “That’s in the air forever now.”
By 11:15 a.m., Dana had accepted three fundamental truths.
One: the emergency department was cursed.
Two: every physician employed by Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center had apparently decided this was the season finale of a network drama.
Three: if one more person looked at their coworker like they were about to either confess their love or ruin their life, Dana was going to fake her own death and move to a cabin in Vermont.
The universe responded to this declaration by immediately making things worse.
Naturally.
Dana was halfway through yelling at central supply over missing IV pumps when Mateo Diaz walked past the nurses station carrying two coffees and looking deeply, profoundly nervous.
Dana spotted it instantly.
The excessive blinking. The overcorrected posture. The weird determined face men made right before humiliating themselves voluntarily.
He walked straight past the resident workroom.
Straight past triage.
Straight toward Victoria Javadi.
Ah.
There it is.
Dana leaned back in her chair slowly, watching the scene unfold with the exhausted focus of a wildlife documentarian observing two gazelles about to run directly into traffic.
Javadi was crouched beside a teenage patient, explaining concussion precautions with her usual calm warmth. Her dark
hair was half falling out of her ponytail, she had marker on the sleeve of her scrub top, and she still somehow looked annoyingly pretty in the fluorescent lighting of the pediatric bay.
Mateo stopped dead about six feet away.
Because of course he did.
Because every man in this hospital apparently lost the ability to function around women they liked.
Dana watched him psych himself up like he was preparing to storm Normandy.
Then:
“Hey.”
Javadi looked up and smiled automatically. “Hey.”
Mateo immediately forgot every word in the English language.
Dana actually watched it happen.
The complete system shutdown.
“Uh,” he said intelligently, holding up the coffee cup, “you said earlier you were tired.”
Javadi blinked. “You got me coffee?”
“Oh my God,” Dana whispered to herself.
Mateo nodded too fast. “It’s the caramel thing you like. But if you hate caramel now that’s cool too. People change.”
Javadi stared at him for one long second before her entire expression softened in this small, surprised way.
And there it fucking was.
Mutual attraction.
Dana was surrounded.
“Thank you,” Javadi said quietly.
Mateo looked like she’d just proposed marriage.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, voice cracking slightly.
Dana put her face in her hands.
Across the station, Santos wandered over with Garcia and immediately followed Dana’s line of sight.
“Oh no,” Santos breathed delightedly. “Another one?”
Garcia looked up from her charting. “Who?”
Santos pointed subtly.
Garcia watched Mateo standing there smiling at Javadi like a Labrador retriever being told he was brave.
“Oh, that’s brutal.”
“I know,” Santos said. “He’s down horrendous.”
Dana looked up sharply. “When did everyone under thirty start talking like internet comments?”
“When the world ended,” Santos answered.
Fair enough.
Javadi accepted the coffee with a soft smile.
Mateo nearly walked directly into a linen cart while leaving.
Santos made a choking sound trying not to laugh.
Dana was beginning to understand why ancient civilizations sacrificed things to gods.
—
At 12:38 p.m., Dana walked into Supply Closet C looking for saline flushes and instead found Frank Langdon bent over the counter while Mel King aggressively whispered at him.
Dana froze.
Not because they were doing anything sexual.
Mostly because Mel looked two seconds away from committing felony assault.
“Are you seriously not answering me now?” Mel hissed.
“I am literally at work.”
“So am I.”
“That doesn’t mean we should do this here.”
“Then stop avoiding me.”
Langdon dragged both hands down his face. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“You left through the back stairwell this morning.”
“I was getting coffee.”
“There’s coffee in the lounge.”
“The lounge coffee tastes like battery acid.”
“It’s free.”
“That’s not the point.”
Dana quietly started backing out of the room.
Then Langdon looked up and saw her.
Of course he did.
His eyes closed briefly in visible despair.
“Dana.”
“Don’t let me interrupt whatever hostage negotiation this is.”
Mel looked completely unashamed. “He’s being annoying.”
“I gathered that, yes.”
Langdon pointed at Mel. “She texted me seventeen times after midnight.”
Mel crossed her arms. “You said and I quote ‘come over whenever.’”
Dana physically recoiled.
“Absolutely not,” she said immediately. “I did not consent to hearing this conversation.”
“You asked,” Mel argued.
“I did not.”
“You implied curiosity.”
“I implied regret for my career path.”
Langdon looked like he wanted the earth to open beneath him.
Which, frankly, Dana respected.
Mel leaned against the shelving, still staring at him with enough intensity to light a match.
“You’re acting weird.”
“I’m acting cautious.”
“Why?”
“Because this is work.”
“And?”
“And if this goes badly I still have to see you every day.”
That landed.
Dana saw it happen in real time.
Mel’s expression shifted slightly — not angry anymore, something more complicated underneath it.
For one brief second the room stopped being funny.
Then Dana remembered she was standing between intravenous fluids and two emotionally constipated physicians having a secret workplace relationship like they were characters on ER in 2004.
Absolutely not.
She clapped her hands once.
“Okay. Great talk. Figure out your unresolved sexual politics later. I need saline flushes and both of you are standing in front of them like emotionally damaged gargoyles.”
Langdon barked out a laugh.
Mel looked personally victimized.
Dana shoved past them and grabbed a box off the shelf.
Then, because God had abandoned her long ago, she noticed something else.
“Oh my God.”
Both of them went still.
Dana pointed at Langdon’s throat.
“That is not the same hickey from this morning.”
The silence could have killed small animals.
Langdon started laughing so hard he had to grab the counter.
Mel looked like she was actively leaving her body.
Dana grabbed her flushes.
“You know what? I hope HR fires all of you. I genuinely do.”
—
By midafternoon the department was fully off the rails.
Not medically.
Emotionally.
Dana had just finished helping stabilize a GI bleed when she heard shouting echo from Stairwell B.
Not angry shouting.
Relationship shouting.
There was a difference.
Emergency nurses developed an ear for these things.
Dana closed her eyes briefly.
“Of fucking course.”
She shoved the chart at a resident and headed for the stairwell already irritated.
The second she opened the door, she found Samira Mohan and Jack Abbot halfway down the landing in the middle of what was very obviously a fight about feelings.
Jack looked panicked.
Mohan looked furious.
Which somehow made Jack look worse.
“You cannot say something like that and then disappear for six hours,” Mohan snapped.
“I was treating patients!”
“You were avoiding me!”
“I was spiraling!”
“Oh my God.”
Both of them turned.
Jack immediately looked like a twelve-year-old caught vaping.
Mohan pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dana—”
“No. I actually don’t want explanations. I don’t even want consciousness anymore.”
Jack gestured helplessly. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Dana stared at him.
“You’re standing in a stairwell arguing with a woman you are obviously in love with during active hospital hours.”
Jack blinked. “I’m not in love with her.”
Mohan laughed once.
Not a happy laugh.
An angry little “are you fucking serious” laugh.
Dana looked between them slowly.
“Oh, this is worse than I thought.”
Jack looked alarmed. “What does that mean?”
“It means she knows and you don’t.”
Mohan turned away abruptly, jaw tight.
Jack stared at her.
Then back at Dana.
Then back at Mohan again with the dawning horror of a man realizing he may have accidentally developed real human emotions.
Dana watched the exact moment the realization hit him.
“Oh no,” he whispered.
Mohan looked at the ceiling like she was asking God for strength.
Dana started walking away.
“Nope. I am not staying for this episode.”
At 4:02 p.m., Dana Evans finally hit the stage of the shift where her soul separated from her body and hovered somewhere near the ceiling tiles.
The Pitt had entered late-afternoon delirium.
The fluorescent lights felt brighter. Everyone smelled faintly like sanitizer and impending burnout. Half the staff had consumed enough caffeine to legally qualify as haunted.
And somehow — somehow — the interpersonal drama was still escalating.
Dana was updating bed assignments when she noticed Santos and Garcia standing at opposite ends of Trauma Three very obviously pretending not to look at each other.
Which, unfortunately, was more intimate than normal people actually kissing.
Garcia was suturing a laceration with the focused calm of someone who genuinely loved surgery more than most human relationships. Santos leaned against the counter nearby, charting while intermittently antagonizing a resident for sport.
“Your line placement sucks,” Santos said without looking up.
The resident frowned. “It’s functional.”
“So was the Titanic for a little while.”
Garcia snorted before she could stop herself.
Santos immediately looked over.
Garcia immediately looked away.
Dana caught the entire exchange and felt a migraine forming behind her left eye.
Because here was the thing with Santos and Garcia: they weren’t subtle in the normal sense. They weren’t Langdon and Mel sneaking around looking sexually compromised at all hours. They weren’t Mohan and Abbot doing emotional slow-burn nonsense in stairwells like tortured indie film protagonists.
No.
Santos and Garcia operated on an entirely different frequency.
They behaved like two people who’d been divorced for six years despite barely dating.
The flirting came disguised as bullying.
The affection came disguised as medical criticism.
And every conversation somehow sounded like HR should be monitoring it.
Garcia tied off the final suture and glanced over at Santos. “You ate today?”
Santos didn’t look up from her tablet. “That’s a weirdly intimate question.”
“You get meaner when your blood sugar drops.”
“I’m always mean.”
“Yeah, but right now you’re ‘fight God in the parking lot’ mean.”
Dana watched Santos bite back a smile.
There it is.
The resident escaped the trauma bay looking frightened.
Garcia stripped off her gloves and walked over toward the supply cart where Santos was standing. Not close enough to be suspicious. Just close enough to make Dana tired.
“You still coming over tonight?” Garcia asked quietly.
Santos shrugged one shoulder like this was casual and not clearly the most important question she’d been asked all day.
“Depends.”
“On?”
“How annoying you are for the next six hours.”
Garcia smirked. “So yes.”
Santos rolled her eyes, but there was color rising in her cheeks now.
Dana wanted everyone to stop having visible emotions immediately.
Unfortunately, the universe wasn’t done humiliating her yet.
Because the second Dana turned the corner toward the nurses station, she heard Garcia say under her breath:
“You left your bra in my apartment again.”
Dana stopped walking.
Santos froze.
Garcia realized too late Dana was still within hearing range.
A catastrophic silence fell over the hallway.
Then Santos slowly looked at Dana.
Dana slowly looked back.
“…I’m going to start drinking at work,” Dana announced.
“Legally you can’t,” Garcia replied automatically.
Dana pointed at her. “You. Stop enabling her.”
Santos looked delighted. “Oh, so now she’s responsible for me?”
Garcia muttered, “You’re impossible.”
And there it was again — that tiny involuntary smile Santos only seemed to get around Garcia specifically. Softer than her usual sharp edges. Less performance, more real.
Dana hated witnessing character development at work.
She turned and walked away before they could drag her into whatever emotionally repressed lesbian sitcom they currently had going on.
Behind her, she heard Santos say:
“You folded my underwear.”
And Garcia answer:
“You leave it everywhere.”
Dana physically accelerated down the hallway.
—
At 5:11 p.m., Whitaker was hiding in the pediatric consult room making a phone call like he was conducting classified government operations.
Dana discovered this accidentally after going in search of missing discharge paperwork and hearing Whitaker’s voice through the partially cracked door.
“…No, the goat definitely still hates me.”
Dana stopped immediately.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
She leaned carefully against the wall outside the room, mostly because this shift had already destroyed her professionalism beyond repair.
Inside, Whitaker sat hunched in one of the plastic chairs, still in blood-spattered scrubs, smiling down at his phone with an expression Dana had literally never seen on him before.
Relaxed.
Happy.
Soft around the edges.
Amy, Dana realized immediately.
The farm widow.
Whitaker laughed quietly at something Amy said on the other end.
“I’m serious,” he said. “That goat has intent to kill. You can hear it in his breathing.”
A pause.
Then Whitaker smiled wider, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.
“No, I know. I’m coming this weekend. I said I would.”
Dana heard Amy’s muffled voice through the speaker — warm, teasing.
Whitaker’s whole face changed when she talked.
It wasn’t dramatic. That was the thing.
No giant sweeping romance nonsense.
Just comfort.
Like his nervous system unclenched around her.
Dana suddenly felt weirdly emotional against her will.
Inside the room, Whitaker lowered his voice slightly. “How’s Theo?”
Another pause.
Then he laughed softly.
“He spit up on you again?”
Dana had to physically stop herself from smiling.
Jesus Christ.
The Nebraska farm boy had accidentally acquired a situationship with a widowed mother and a baby.
Of course he had.
It was aggressively Whitaker-coded.
“I can bring more formula when I come up,” he offered. “And I can fix that fence behind the east field if your cousin still hasn’t done it.”
A longer silence this time.
Whitaker’s expression softened even further.
“No,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”
Dana looked away suddenly, feeling like she’d wandered into something too genuine for the rest of this circus.
Then Whitaker spoke again.
And immediately ruined the emotional moment.
“I miss the cows.”
Dana closed her eyes.
Amy apparently laughed hard enough that Whitaker started laughing too.
“I’m serious!” he defended. “The city smells weird. Pittsburgh has, like… wet concrete energy.”
Dana finally pushed the door open.
Whitaker nearly launched himself into cardiac arrest.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Tell your farm girlfriend I said hi.”
“She’s not my—”
Amy’s voice crackled faintly through the phone speaker:
“Hi Dana.”
Dana grinned immediately. “Oh, she’s heard about me. Interesting.”
Whitaker looked like he wanted death.
Dana crossed her arms. “You coming back to work today or are you eloping to Nebraska?”
“It’s not Nebraska,” Whitaker muttered.
“Yet.”
Amy laughed again through the phone.
Whitaker smiled helplessly at the sound without even realizing he was doing it.
Dana pointed at him instantly. “Oh, you are gone.”
Whitaker turned red all the way to his ears.
“I have patients.”
“Mmhm.”
“And charting.”
“Sure.”
“And I’m not—”
“In love?” Dana finished. “Yeah, none of you idiots ever are until suddenly you’re helping raise a baby and repairing agricultural fencing.”
Whitaker stared at the floor.
Which was answer enough.
Dana sighed dramatically.
“Alright. Wrap up your little Hallmark movie phone call and get back out there. Trauma Two’s asking for you.”
Whitaker nodded obediently.
Then, quieter, back into the phone:
“Okay. I’ll call you later.”
Another soft pause.
“…Yeah. Me too.”
Dana walked back into the hallway shaking her head.
This department was unbelievable.
By 6:30 p.m., Dana had entered what emergency medicine professionals referred to as the “if one more thing happens I will become a cryptid” phase of the shift.
The waiting room was overflowing.
Someone in Fast Track had vomited into a ficus.
A resident had cried in the bathroom for reasons nobody had time to investigate.
And Dana still had three hours left before she could go home and dissociate in peace.
The worst part was that the actual medicine today wasn’t even the problem.
The Pitt handled chaos well. Trauma, overdoses, psych emergencies, gunshots, drunks, disasters — those things made sense. There were protocols for those.
What Dana did not have protocols for was the entire emergency department apparently entering mating season simultaneously.
She was updating staffing assignments when Mel King stormed past the nurses station with the furious momentum of someone actively headed toward bad decisions.
Thirty seconds later, Frank Langdon followed.
Not subtle.
Not smooth.
Not even pretending anymore.
Dana looked up slowly from her clipboard.
“Oh absolutely not.”
Neither of them acknowledged her.
Which meant yes, absolutely.
Santos appeared beside Dana like an evil little sleep paralysis demon. “Where do you think they’re going?”
Dana didn’t even look at her. “I’ll transfer you to geriatrics.”
Garcia walked up behind Santos holding discharge papers. “What’s happening?”
“Langdon and Mel are speed-walking after each other,” Santos huffed.
Garcia leaned sideways slightly to watch them disappear down the hallway.
“…Oh.”
“Yeah,” Dana muttered.
Then, because God had abandoned her specifically, Robby walked by at that exact moment and followed everyone’s eyeline.
He stopped.
Saw Langdon disappearing around the corner after Mel.
Closed his eyes briefly.
“No.”
Dana pointed after them. “Your children are fighting again.”
“They are not my children.”
“Frank literally asks for your approval like a teenage boy trying to borrow the car.”
Robby looked deeply exhausted by that being objectively true.
Baran Al-Hashimi emerged from Trauma One pulling off gloves. “What happened now?”
Dana gestured vaguely. “Your emotionally constipated coworkers.”
Baran watched Langdon vanish around the hallway corner and sighed in immediate understanding.
“Oh, they’re having a relationship discussion during peak shift hours. Excellent.”
Robby rubbed his face tiredly. “Should someone stop them?”
All four of them considered this.
Then Santos said:
“I mean… they’re both adults.”
Garcia added, “Technically.”
Dana snapped her clipboard shut. “I hate every single person employed here.”
—
Five minutes later Dana found them anyway.
Because of course she did.
She’d gone looking for transport forms and instead walked directly into the soundproof consult room beside radiology where Mel and Langdon were in the middle of a full-volume argument.
Not yelling exactly.
Worse.
Intense whisper-fighting.
The kind where both people are trying not to scream but desperately want to.
“You’re acting like this is temporary,” Mel was saying.
“I’m acting like we work together.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s literally the entire answer.”
Dana paused outside the cracked doorway.
Against her better judgment.
Because she was only human.
Langdon stood with both hands braced on his hips, looking exhausted and cornered in equal measure. Mel leaned against the wall across from him, eyes sharp with irritation but something more vulnerable underneath it too.
Dana hated how real this suddenly looked.
It was easier when everyone was just being embarrassing.
“You think this is gonna blow up eventually,” Mel said flatly.
Langdon looked away.
Which was apparently answer enough.
“Oh my God,” Mel laughed once, disbelieving. “Wow.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I’m trying to be realistic.”
“No, you’re trying to leave yourself an exit strategy.”
Dana physically winced outside the door.
Jesus.
Okay.
Maybe this had gotten a little too emotionally literate for her liking.
Inside the room, Langdon looked genuinely thrown by that.
“That’s not fair.”
Mel crossed her arms tighter. “You know what? Maybe it is.”
For a second neither of them spoke.
Then Langdon said quietly:
“You scare the shit out of me.”
Well.
That shut the room up.
Dana blinked slowly at the wall.
Mel’s expression shifted immediately.
Not softer exactly.
Just surprised.
Langdon laughed tiredly, dragging a hand through his hair. “You come into my apartment and suddenly my entire routine disappears for like forty-eight hours.”
Mel stared at him.
“You leave your stuff everywhere,” he continued. “You bully me into eating actual meals. You argue with me about sleep like you’re legally entitled to my circadian rhythm—”
“You need sleep.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
Langdon looked at her for one long second.
Then:
“I’m not good at this.”
Dana suddenly felt like she should not be hearing this.
Which was unfortunate because she absolutely still was.
Mel’s face softened almost imperceptibly.
“You think I am?”
“You act like you are.”
“That’s because one of us has to.”
There was a pause.
A long one.
Then Langdon smiled despite himself — small, reluctant, helpless.
And Mel smiled back automatically.
Oh no.
Dana knew that look.
That was bad.
That was real feelings bad.
Dana immediately backed away from the door because she refused to witness anything emotionally sincere after the day she’d had.
Unfortunately, the second she stepped backward she walked directly into Jack Abbot carrying lab reports.
He startled violently.
Dana startled violently.
The lab reports exploded everywhere.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Why are you lurking?” Jack hissed.
“I work here!”
“You were eavesdropping!”
“I was emotionally adjacent at most.”
Jack looked toward the consult room door.
Then back at Dana.
“…Is this about Langdon and Mel?”
Dana pointed at him. “You don’t get to judge anyone until you stop staring at Samira like she invented fire.”
Jack looked personally attacked.
Before he could answer, the consult room door suddenly opened.
Mel stepped out first.
Then froze.
Because now:
* Dana was there,
* Jack was there,
* paperwork was all over the floor,
* and Langdon was directly behind her looking emotionally disassembled.
Nobody spoke.
Then Santos appeared at the end of the hallway.
Saw the scene instantly.
And said:
“Oh this is delicious.”
Garcia, trailing behind her, physically covered her own face with one hand.
Dana looked toward the ceiling briefly, like she was asking God for patience and receiving absolutely none in return.
“This hospital,” she announced to nobody specifically, “is one group therapy session away from collapse.”
By 8:14 p.m., Dana Evans had officially reached her limit.
Not her professional limit.
That had happened sometime around 2009.
No, this was her psychological limit. Her spiritual limit. The limit beyond which a woman either retired gracefully or started keying cars in the parking garage.
The department had settled into the strange evening rhythm unique to emergency medicine — marginally calmer but infinitely weirder. Half the overhead lights dimmed. Everyone running on caffeine fumes and deteriorating emotional regulation. The waiting room TV playing a home renovation show no one was actually watching.
Dana was trying to finish chart audits when she realized Santos had disappeared.
Immediately suspicious.
Mostly because Santos only disappeared for three reasons:
1. causing problems,
2. avoiding problems,
3. lesbian-related activities.
Dana sighed heavily and went looking for her because apparently this was her life now.
She found them in the CT hallway.
Of course she did.
Garcia was backed against the wall beside the supply alcove while Santos kissed her with the kind of confidence possessed exclusively by women who had never once feared consequences in their lives.
Dana stopped dead.
Not because the kiss itself was scandalous.
Because fifteen minutes earlier these same two idiots had been arguing over charting abbreviations like they were headed for divorce court.
Garcia had one hand tangled in the front of Santos’s scrub top.
Santos was smirking into the kiss.
Smirking.
Which felt medically concerning somehow.
Dana pinched the bridge of her nose.
“I need all of you to discover hobbies immediately.”
Garcia jumped backward so fast she nearly concussed herself on the wall.
Santos barely reacted.
Honestly, Dana respected the commitment to the bit.
“What?” Santos asked innocently.
“You are making out in a hallway.”
“It’s a secluded hallway.”
“It’s connected to radiology!”
“No one likes radiology.”
Garcia looked like she wanted the earth to swallow her whole.
“Dana, we thought everyone was in trauma—”
Dana pointed sharply. “No. No excuses. You lost hallway kissing privileges after the underwear conversation.”
Garcia made a strangled noise.
Santos outright laughed.
“Oh my God,” Garcia muttered, covering her face.
Dana looked at Santos. “And you stop looking so pleased with yourself. You’re the human equivalent of a workplace liability form.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I mean it derogatorily.”
Garcia grabbed Santos by the wrist immediately. “Okay. We’re leaving.”
Santos allowed herself to be dragged away while still grinning.
Then, over her shoulder:
“She started it.”
Garcia looked horrified. “Why would you say that out loud?”
Dana stared after them.
“Lesbians,” she whispered to herself. “Absolutely terrifying.”
—
At 8:37 p.m., Dana discovered Frank Langdon and Mel King.
Again.
This time she found them in the ambulance bay corridor right outside the staff elevators.
Which honestly felt disrespectful at this point.
Fifteen minutes earlier they had been in a dramatic relationship argument intense enough to qualify for Emmy consideration.
Now?
Now Mel had Langdon shoved lightly against the wall by the elevators kissing him like she was trying to erase his ability to think.
And judging by the way one of Langdon’s hands was gripping her waist, mission accomplished.
Dana physically stopped walking.
Stared at them.
Looked around to see if anyone else was witnessing this public act of psychological warfare against her specifically.
A paramedic pushing a stretcher caught Dana’s eye.
Took one look at the kissing doctors.
Then quietly turned his stretcher around and chose another hallway entirely.
Correct choice.
Dana crossed her arms.
“Aren’t y’all supposed to be fighting?”
Mel jerked backward so fast she almost hit the floor.
Langdon looked entirely unrepentant.
Which was becoming a pattern.
“Oh my God,” Mel muttered into her hands.
Langdon smirked lazily. “We resolved it.”
Dana stared at him. “In the elevator hallway?”
“Efficient use of time.”
Mel looked like she wanted to dissolve into dust.
Dana pointed at her accusingly. “You. Why do you suddenly look eighteen years old when he kisses you?”
“I hate this conversation.”
“You should. I certainly do.”
Langdon leaned casually against the wall. “Dana, respectfully, you keep accidentally finding us.”
“I work here.”
“Mmhm.”
Dana narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get smug with me just because your sad little situationship survived act two conflict.”
Mel groaned audibly.
Langdon looked delighted.
“Oh, we’re past situationship now.”
Mel turned slowly toward him. “We are?”
Langdon shrugged. “I decided.”
The stupid, helpless smile that appeared on Mel’s face afterward nearly made Dana throw herself into oncoming traffic.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The elevator dinged open behind them.
Neither moved.
Dana physically waved her hands. “Get in the elevator or get back to work. I’m serious. You two are becoming an HR incident.”
Mel finally grabbed Langdon’s hand and tugged him toward the elevator.
The doors started closing.
Then at the last second Langdon looked back toward Dana and muttered:
“…Sorry.”
Dana stared at the closed elevator doors for a long moment.
“No you’re not.”
—
At 8:56 p.m., Dana witnessed the final straw.
And honestly?
It was the gentlest thing she’d seen all day.
Which somehow made it worse.
She’d gone looking for Mateo because a family in Four needed discharge instructions in Spanish. She found him in Pediatrics sitting beside Victoria Javadi while they watched a little girl aggressively bandage a stuffed giraffe.
The kid finally got wheeled upstairs with her parents.
The room quieted.
Javadi leaned back in her chair with a tired sigh, rubbing at her eyes.
Mateo looked at her the way men in old poetry looked at the moon.
“You okay?” Mateo asked softly.
“Mmhm. Just tired.”
“You skipped lunch.”
Javadi looked over at him. “You noticed?”
“You get quieter when you’re hungry.”
Oh my God.
Dana actually felt herself leave her body briefly.
Javadi smiled — small and genuine and exhausted.
Then Mateo reached over automatically and pressed the gentlest kiss to the top of her head.
Not dramatic.
Not sexual.
Not performative.
Just instinctive.
Familiar already somehow.
And that—
THAT—
was what finally broke her.
Because now it wasn’t even hookups and unresolved sexual tension anymore.
Now people were developing tenderness.
In her emergency department.
Absolutely fucking not.
Dana spun on her heel and marched directly toward the nurses station with the terrifying purpose of a woman about to become everyone’s problem.
Five minutes later half the department had gathered around the central desk looking confused.
Dana stood behind the station with both palms planted flat against the counter.
Robby arrived first, immediately suspicious.
“What’s happening?”
“A disciplinary hearing,” Dana answered.
Baran walked up beside him holding an energy drink. “Against who?”
Dana looked around slowly.
“All of you.”
Santos immediately started grinning.
“Oh, this is gonna be good.”
“Quiet, bisexual menace.”
Garcia choked on absolutely nothing.
One by one the offenders assembled:
* Langdon and Mel emerging from the elevator looking suspiciously happy,
* Mohan and Jack standing too close together while pretending not to,
* Mateo and Javadi arriving mid-conversation,
* Whitaker wandering over holding his phone with Amy’s contact still open,
* Santos leaning directly against Garcia like she’d learned nothing.
Dana looked at all of them.
Really looked at them.
Then inhaled deeply.
“I have worked in emergency medicine,” she began calmly, “since some of you were still eating glue recreationally.”
Nobody interrupted.
Mostly because Dana using her calm voice was universally understood to be a threat.
“I have survived:
* six hospital administrators,
* three floods,
* one active raccoon situation,
* and the 2020 sourdough era.”
Robby quietly looked at the floor.
Dana pointed wildly around the station.
“But THIS—” she snapped. “This horny little hospital-wide community theater production you all have going on? Unacceptable.”
Mel covered her mouth, visibly trying not to squeak.
Dana whirled toward her immediately. “You. Stop smiling at Langdon like that.”
Mel blinked. “Like what?”
“Like you’re about to climb him in an elevator again.”
Langdon made a choking noise.
Jack looked horrified.
Santos looked thrilled.
Dana pointed at Santos next. “And YOU. You are one more hallway makeout session away from me personally calling HR.”
Garcia muttered, “That’s fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” Santos argued.
“You left a bra at her apartment,” Dana shot back.
The entire nurses station exploded.
Mateo physically bent over laughing.
Javadi looked like she might pass out.
Garcia covered her face completely.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Santos looked delighted beyond reason.
Robby actually walked away laughing.
Dana pointed at Mohan and Jack next.
“And you two. Figure your feelings out before somebody gets injured by proximity alone.”
Jack looked deeply offended. “We’re professional.”
Every single person at the nurses station laughed immediately.
Including Baran.
Including Whitaker.
Even Mohan looked embarrassed enough to know that was objectively false.
Dana swung toward Mateo next.
“And stop looking at Javadi like she personally invented serotonin.”
Mateo turned bright red.
Javadi burst out laughing.
“And Whitaker,” Dana continued, “if I hear one more phone call about farm animals during active trauma hours, I’m transferring you to Nebraska myself.”
Whitaker looked startled. “It’s not Nebraska.”
“THAT IS NOT THE POINT.”
At this point the entire staff was openly laughing.
Dana didn’t care.
She was committed now.
Finally she looked toward Robby and Baran, who unfortunately had the decency to look mildly guilty.
“And you two.”
Robby sighed immediately. “Dana—”
“No. Don’t Dana me. Everybody in this department can feel whatever unresolved thing is happening between you from across the building.”
Baran took a long sip of her energy drink.
Robby looked like he wanted evacuation.
Dana spread both hands dramatically.
“You are all doctors. Highly trained professionals. And yet every single one of you is acting like contestants on Love Island with access to narcotics.”
Santos actually applauded.
Dana pointed at the entire group one final time.
“Leave your personal lives outside the hospital doors. I am serious. If I walk in on ONE more act of workplace affection, I will quit, write a memoir, and name every single one of you explicitly.”
A beat of silence.
Then Langdon quietly raised a hand.
Dana narrowed her eyes. “What.”
“…Can the memoir at least make me sound cool?”
“Oh for FUCKS SAKE GET OUT OF MY ER!”