Work Text:
"Change is the only constant in life"- Heraclitus
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Dr. Melissa King sighed as she stepped out into the night, rubbing her eyes underneath her glasses. She took a deep breath as she started her walk toward the closest bus stop to the hospital, breathing in the cooler night air as she listened to the crickets chirp from the nearby park.
It had been the longest 'first day' ever. She couldn't remember how many patients she had seen today, between the regular dailies into the ED and an onslaught of traumas from the shooting. 112 victims, according to Dr. Robby. She was exhausted and elated, sad and stressed, all at the same time. It was also 10:13pm, and she still had to go pick up Becca.
Mel walked along the sidewalk towards the stop alone. She had heard something about a few people going to get a drink after work but she didn't have any interest in partaking, nor had she been outright invited. Either way, she still had a lot to learn about the social setting of her new workplace. Making friends had never been her strong suit. She was awkward, but friendly. Smart, but in that way that some people seemed to find off-putting. People being put off could also be due to her lack of ability to keep things to herself at times. Despite this, she had made it through the day without any major mishaps from a strictly medical sense. The same couldn't be said for the other newcomers. Javadi had passed out from a vasovagal episode after observing a degloved tib-fib reduction. Whittaker's first patient had unexpectedly died, plus he had gone through more sets of scrubs than she could count, poor guy. Santos had done several things throughout the day without getting appropriate authorization, and she has somehow managed to put a scalpel in Dr. Garcia's foot. Mel's medicine had been solid, but she had gotten emotional in front of her colleagues and superiors more than once and that was humiliating in and of itself.
As she walked, she noticed someone sitting on the bench in the dark up ahead of her. Mel slowed down, ready to cross the street if needed to avoid them, when they looked up and she felt a flash of recognition from the profile she could make out under the streetlights.
"Dr. Langdon?" She called out. He turned to glance at her as she approached down the sidewalk. He looked exhausted; bags under his eyes, hair disheveled, posture slumping against the back of the bench.
"Oh. Hey, Mel." She came to a stop at the far end of the bench from where he sat, looking at him curiously with a small smile.
"You're here? I thought you had gone home already." He looked away from her and chuckled dryly without humor, as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Right. Yeah, well I don't really know what I'm gonna do when I get there," He shrugged his shoulders, "So I'm sitting here until I figure it out."
Her smile vanished. Something was wrong, clearly. She gestured toward the empty seat next to him. "Mind if I-?" He shook his head.
"Nah, you should go home. It's been a long day."
"We were supposed to go home hours ago. What's a few minutes?" She asks rhetorically, sitting as she spoke. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Just a long day." He repeated. She scoffed lightly before she could think better of it.
"That seems like a bit of an understatement." Langdon hummed in agreement.
"Yeah, I meant to find you afterwards to check on you. That was completely insane, in there. You doing alright with all of that?" She sighed and leaned back, mimicking his position.
"Is maybe an ok answer? I honestly don't know." He nodded in confirmation.
"Maybe's ok."
They sat quietly for a minute. Simply existing in each others company in the dark, while she contemplated how she could help the man that went out of his way to help her earlier.
"Want to play the secrets game?" Mel blurted, the thought flying out of her mouth before she could put the brakes on. She winced internally, she might be too tired for this.
"Um-"
"I told you about my sister, right?" He nods. "We have a game we play, it's called the secrets game. I mean, it's not really a game but it's just a thing we do. The point is, we each take a turn saying a secret nobody else knows, and the secret can never leave the game. It doesn't have to be a big one or anything, just any secret." Langdon is just staring at her now. "I'll go first." She thinks for a moment before she continues.
"I am constantly worried that I'm going to fail Becca. That's my sister's name, Becca. We moved here for her facility, and it's on me to be able to afford it and get her there everyday and I felt good about it, right? Until I walked in there." She gestures toward the hospital complex behind them. "When I walked in there, I felt so completely out of my element. I think I know what I'm doing, and then I don't. I think I have control of my feelings, and then I don't. And if I fail and wash out? I have no idea what we would do. I have no idea how I would take care of her and there's nobody else to do it. I'm the only thing she knows anymore and I would fail her." He's still looking at her, but something in his eyes has softened a little bit. They're quiet again, just watching each other as the silence stretches out between them.
"Mel-"
"You don't have to say anything, that's not the point of the game."
"I really don't know if this count's as a game so-"
"The point of the 'thing'. It doesn't really matter-"
"Oh my god, will you just let me say it? Please?" Mel shuts her mouth and nods minutely.
"You didn't fail today. I don't think you understand how true that statement is. You didn't even 'kind of' fail. You were incredible. You answered all the questions, you did all the procedures, you were comfortable with your patients and they trusted you. You had a fucking mass casualty and all I saw was you being fantastic in there. I heard Robby even put you in charge of the yellow zone? If you compare the day you just had, to my first day as a second year resident?" He chuckles quietly. "You blew me out of the fucking water." She opens her mouth to say something again, and he completely ignores her. "And even if, somehow, this didn't end up working for you? I can tell you'd still find a way to take care of your sister. Nobody that cares that much just gives up." He shifts so he's leaning a little closer to her. "Mel, your sister is lucky to have you."
At some point while he was talking, Mel had looked down and away from him. Unable to look him in the eye while he said those things. Unable to look him in the eye while hers started to tear up for what felt like the millionth time that day. She watched some of the early fall leaves blow along the street before she spoke again.
"You're supposed to say a secret now." Langdon huffs, leaning further back in his seat. Face tilted up toward the sky with how he was splayed out, with his legs stretched out in front of him, laid against the back of the bench.
"I.. I feel like I don't know who I am." Mel waits as he lays there, looking up at the stars.
"I feel like, when I wasn't looking, someone reached into my life and shook everything up and nothing makes any damn sense anymore. I don't even recognize it, or me. I don't know how to fix it. How do you even start? I don't feel like I can trust anything. Everything feels huge and wrong and I don't know how I got here. One day, I was me. A dad and a husband and a resident on his way to becoming a good doctor that people could trust and now? Now I'm just this bad guy that looks put together but inside is a fucking disaster that just keeps hurting people and making it worse every time I turn around." He lets out a huge breath as he finished, as if he was physically removing a weight from his chest with the words.
"I don't think you're a bad guy." She answered softly.
"No offense, Mel, but you've literally known me for a day."
"No, I mean it. I don't think you're a bad guy, and I'm generally a pretty good judge of character. You saved so many people today, and you took the time to teach me and help me. You clearly love your kids," She looks pointedly at the bracelet on his wrist. "Those aren't qualities of a bad person, and everyone makes mistakes. The not knowing who you are part? I think that part's sort of normal too. People are changing and the world is changing all the time and we are just doing our best to keep up. It's fair to be thrown off by that. It could even mean something better is coming." She kept her eyes on him the whole time, her brown ones meeting his blue, seeing them turn shiny in the corners, just slightly.
"I'm scared." He confesses quietly, almost inaudibly.
"Scared is ok." Mel paused, deciding what to say next. "I think you'll figure it out. You just have to try to move forward, and make the best choices you can."
"How do you know what the right choice is?"
"Well, I'm a woman of science. I tend to operate off of probabilities and statistics," He chuckles at that. "But if that fails, I try to choose whatever option is the best for the most people." Langdon hums in response.
"Weird game."
"Becca loves reality television. I think she's always waiting for me to have better secrets. I also got a lecture earlier about needing to find a boyfriend, so." He laughed again, but a real laugh that brought a smile to his face and a little bit of the sparkle to his eye that she had seen that morning.
He had pretty eyes.
She was definitely too tired for this.
"Thanks, Mel." Langdon sat back upright.
"You're welcome, Dr. Langdon."
"Frank." She tilted her head at him in question. "We aren't at work, you can call me Frank." Mel gives him a small smile and nod of affirmation. They looked at each other for a moment, then he scrubbed a hand over his face. "Today was the worst day ever."
"I don't know, some good things happened too."
"Like what?"
"Well we got to hang out with Crosby, we saved a lot of people, I got a spinal tap from a family of antivaxxers, Oh! I was looking for you earlier, before the MCI. I wanted to tell you that I got to help deliver a baby with Dr. Collins." She grinned brightly, remembering what was easily one of the best parts of her day.
"Really? We don't get a lot of those. Usually L&D will come grab them as soon as they know they're there."
"A surrogate mom with a shoulder dystocia and then she hemorrhaged from a uterine atony. The baby wasn't breathing at first either, one minute APGAR was 3." He whistled lowly.
"Fuck."
"Yeah, but we got them both handled. I peeked at their most recent vitals when I was charting before I left and they both seem to be doing well. The dads were so happy, it was amazing." She trailed off a bit, and Langdon shook his head. He stood, pulling his backpack back on.
"Like I said, totally blowing my first day out of the water." She was still smiling when she followed his lead, standing and brushing her pants off with her hands. "Still green though."
"I thought you said I was growing on you?" He fought a smile, the dimple in his cheek poking out.
"Yeah, definitely growing on me." He shoved his hands into his sweatshirt pockets. "Go home, get some sleep." He orders. "When are you even supposed to be back?"
"Ok, yeah, it's been a long day. I'm back Sunday, I think. See you then?" She takes a step forward and around him, back in the direction of the bus stop. Something in his face shifts a bit, but he answers anyways.
"Yeah, I'll see you. Goodnight, Mel." He says, slowly walking backwards away from her.
"Goodnight, Frank." He smiles at her one last time and then they turn simultaneously, heading their respective ways.
She was still bone tired, and her feet ached in her shoes, and she was hungry. Despite this, her steps felt a little bit lighter than they had before.
Ok, so maybe she made one friend.